Supreme Court hands down Uber decision on worker status

Many of us followed the Uber cases through the appeal Courts as the impact of these decisions have a significant impact on hiring practices in the gig economy and more widely.  Early last year, the final appeal court (the Supreme Court) handed down its judgment in Uber BV and ors V Aslam and ors , which marks a big step forward in worker rights. 

A key take away from this decision is that the written contract between the parties is not the starting point for deciding if someone is a worker, giving them access to key worker rights such as paid holiday and the minimum wage.  Uber contracts were designed to avoid worker status and the Supreme Court made clear this approach will not work.  In deciding whether someone is a worker you should look at the reality of the situation, such as the control Uber exercises over its drivers and customer relationships, not just the written contract. 

This was a huge decision, not only for Uber and its 40,000 + drivers, who can now claim minimum wage (and back pay for unpaid minimum wage) and 5.6 weeks paid annual leave, but for the rest of the gig economy and beyond, affecting any business using ‘self employed’ contractors.

As a comparison piece it is also worth being aware of the EAT decision earlier this month, Johnson v Transopco UK Ltd,  which is a good example of a genuinely ‘self employed’ relationship. A taxi driver working through the Mytaxi app was held to be self employed and not a ‘worker’ of the app operator. The driver could provide his services as infrequently or as often as he wanted, could dictate the timing of those services, and was not subject to control by the operator in the way in which those services were undertaken.   He also took a relatively small proportion of work through the app compared to work he did on his own account.  This decision illustrates just how fact dependant ‘worker status’ cases are and that the level of dependency/control is likely to be a key focus.