After a five-year battle, Britain’s Supreme Court has held that Uber drivers will no longer be regarded as self-employed but workers under the company Uber.

Historically, Uber has claimed that their drivers are not workers and are thus not suitable to certain entitlements such as holidays or sick days. During the peak of the pandemic, these labour issues became incredibly apparent as many drivers lost consistent revenue streams, fell victim to accidents and had no recourse of action under Uber. Many international labour laws and trade unions have challenged these aspects over the years but only now have regulators sided with the workers.

Uber also maintains the position that it solely operates a technology platform that links drivers and passengers. However, based on the evidence before it and Uber’s operation, the British Supreme Court found that Uber “behaved more like an employer by setting rates, assigning rides, requiring drivers to follow certain routes and using a rating system to discipline them.” Consequently, UK drivers are expected to be entitled to approximately £12,000 in compensation under this new ruling, with several other benefits provided to employees.

Although beneficial to the individual, this decision will certainly impact Uber’s reign. Despite near universal-adoption, Uber operates at a loss. In 2020 alone, “Uber reported a net loss of $6.8 billion.” If Uber’s business model is reconfigured to compensate for employee compensation, it is likely that Uber will face incredible difficulty going into the future. Moreover, this ruling has opened the eyes of regulators in Australia, Europe and the United States, possible resulting in monetary compensation on an international level. This precedent alone is said to have grander implications to general contract workers rights in the gig economy.

It will be interesting to see how similar companies, such as Lyft, DoorDash, Grubhub, etc. react to the ruling and whether they will take any proactive steps to protect their ‘workers’.

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