Salary for British Uber drivers: "there must be a snowball effect"
In the United Kingdom, the Uber platform now grants British drivers the status of salaried worker.
AFP / File
Text by: Patricia Lecompte
6 mins
In the United Kingdom, as of Wednesday March 17, the 70,000 Uber VTC drivers will now benefit from the same rights as all employees, such as receiving paid vacation, having social, health and unemployment coverage.
This decision by the British Supreme Court signals a profound change for the Uber application, whose drivers have until now been self-employed and risks upsetting the model of digital platforms in the United Kingdom.
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Three questions to Maître Kevin Mention, lawyer at the Paris Bar and defender of VTC drivers.
RFI: Why is it in the United Kingdom that the drivers of the Uber platform won their case?
Master Kevin Mention
: You should know that in the United Kingdom, this decision follows a long fight by Uber drivers who went to the Supreme Court which rendered its decision last month.
She confirmed that there was indeed a link of subordination, therefore a boss-employee relationship between Uber and its drivers.
While today, Uber, in all countries of the world is very reluctant to confirm this employee status, and well for the first time, Uber tells us that it will grant a minimum wage, paid vacation and all advantages which it denied to its workers.
This decision remobilizes the troops in France.
Those who had not yet taken legal action say today that they too wish to see their situation regularized.
If only the paid leave is 10% of all they have received since they have worked for a minimum of three years, which must be regularized and then there are severance payments, for those who have had their contracts broken, etc., so that re-mobilizes those who are in court today.
They were convinced of their rights, they are even more convinced of it.
It is a very positive decision which will make Uber its speech much more difficult in justice, because until now in France and in other countries, they always affirmed that there was no wage earning at them.
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Read also: Uber grants British drivers the status of salaried worker
Uber will become a classic business, how will its model change? Is this likely to have an impact on its economic performance?
For its economic performance, this may have an impact, since the purpose of this declaration of a false status of the worker was to save money.
Now, there is also an image advantage, I think, for the public and then, the speech that Uber had to close its doors when there were employees no longer exists.
Today, for the first time, the company maintains its activity, while its threats to leave the countries which fought it were really recurrent.
And for the first time, I tell myself that yes, it is quite possible.
This means that ultimately, Uber had to give in to be able to continue to exist.
It went to the end and continues today, notably in the European Union, but also in other countries.
There is a lot of lobbying on this status which is not quite the same in the UK as in France.
But we see that the Court of Cassation had also condemned it in France by recognizing a status of employee already last year and for the moment nothing has changed.
On the other hand, Uber asks the French government like many other governments to perpetuate its activity without declaration of an employee status and there, we will be able to see in the coming months what is the fate of French workers on this same issue.
Do you think the British decision could snowball in all neighboring European countries, and what future for Uber?
Of course, there can be a snowball effect, there must be a snowball effect, since today their speech in court (where there are still hundreds of drivers who attacked the platform, although many others are afraid to go all the way because they are still working with her and can be fired with this self-employed status overnight), is to say that these are not employees.
This activity has nothing to do with wage labor.
There, Uber will have to explain why in the United Kingdom, we are of course salaried.
If the VTC drivers of the platform are requalified as employees in other countries, Uber will be a company with a lot of workers all over the world who will have all the guarantees that this entails, with obligations also for the drivers since they report to their boss.
It must be seen that with the application, this had already been the case for years, they are accountable, they have sanctions according to certain shortcomings, especially in terms of quality of work.
Today, there is a status that is recognized.
They will respect him on their side.
On the other hand, the platform will have to cede all the advantages of the salaried work that it saved until today illegally.
Regarding social security contributions, we are talking about millions of euros that are saved, while millions of euros finance our hospitals, for example.
And then we are talking about Uber, the VTC version, but it will also be about the delivery men of UberEats, who deliver meals in even more precarious conditions.
We can see that this is also the case in many countries around the world.
We have a presumption of salaried employment which was raised
only a few days ago in Spain
, there is a vast investigation in Italy which showed disguised salaried workers also among Uber deliverers of meals and other platforms and which condemned them to million euros in fine and summoned them to pay their meal delivery staff as well.
So this is going to impact thousands and thousands of employees around the world.
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Also to listen: Salary for British Uber drivers: "It is not sure that the status is interesting"
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