Uber BV and others v Aslam and others

Speaking of Uber… They appealed the Employment Tribunal’s finding that their drivers were workers and their appeal failed. We’ve looked at the Uber case before and the factors used to determine worker status in some detail and so this probably won’t come as a surprise to you!

Uber tried to argue that it’s role is limited to (i) acting as a technology platform facilitating the provision of taxi drivers and (ii) acting as agent for the drivers. They persisted in their argument that all their drivers are self-employed and that a contract is concluded between the driver and passenger for each ride.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld the Employment Tribunal’s finding that the drivers were integrated into Uber’s business and required to operate under Uber’s control – for example, they had to accept Uber’s terms, they could not negotiate their own terms with passengers and could not establish their own business relationships with passengers. If a driver failed to accept bookings the app generated warning messages that this could lead to the driver’s access to the app being suspended or blocked.

It was held that the drivers were workers during any period in which they were signed up to the app and within the territory that they were authorised/ engaged to cover and ready to accept bookings. It was held that during this time they were entitled to rest breaks under the Working Time Regulations and minimum wage under the National Minimum Wage Act.

Independent Workers Union of Great Britain v RooFoods Ltd (t/a Deliveroo)

By contrast, it has been held that Deliveroo riders are not workers.

Deliveroo is an app that the riders can log into and mark themselves as available or unavailable – they choose when and where they want to work. The riders are given Deliveroo branded equipment (jacket and thermal bike box) but are not obliged to use it and they are given some basic training (food hygiene). Work is offered to the available rider nearest to the restaurant. However, unlike Uber the rider can accept or decline a job with no repercussions – they can even accept a job and change their mind by calling Rider Support to have the job reallocated. Another important difference between Deliveroo and Uber is that Deliveroo riders can provide a substitute rider to do the work for them – that substitute may be another Deliveroo rider or may be engaged by the rider themselves.

These subtle differences are very important to the categorisation of someone as an employee, worker or self-employed. In this case, they were enough to warrant a finding that Deliveroo riders are self-employed.

Hermes…

And as a final mention on worker status, Hermes is currently awaiting an Employment Tribunal hearing and judgment on whether its delivery drivers are workers or self-employed contractors. Hugo Martin, the Legal Affairs Director, has allegedly said that regardless of the outcome of that hearing the company will not change its working practices unless subsequent individual claims are brought.