Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Alastair Espie: Employment Lawyer on the ruling around Uber drivers

Transcript

Alastair Espie: Employment Lawyer on the ruling around Uber drivers · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Uber has lost a landmark appeal after the Employment Court
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: ruled that four Uber drivers should be treated as employees,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: not contractors. Drivers are now set to get holiday pay,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: sick leave, and the right to unionize. The ride share
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: company has since announced it and now wants to appeal
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: the verdict to the Supreme Court. And Alistair SB is
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: an employment lawyer. He's with us this morning, Alistair.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Good morning, morning mine.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: How are you very well? Thank you? Is this going
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: to have ramifications for every other Uber driver?
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: In a word, yes, because essentially, although the decision here
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: was about just four Uber drivers, they are all effectively
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: employees and in the same way under the same model.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: So just about every other Uber driver unless they're on
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: a totally different arrangements, and I think that's unlikely, it's
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: going to have the same argument that they are an employee.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I believe that there's.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: A fairly large number of employees or Uber drivers the
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: unions representing and who they're trying to bring claims from
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: employment entitlements already.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: This is a process that's underway, which means Uber is
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: likely to have to stump up, which means for every
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: you know, your customers, we're going to be paying more presumably.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's for Uber to work through in terms
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: of how it passes that cost on not so I
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: couldn't really say that, you know, that is one possible outcome.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Can't they? Aren't they different because they can essentially cheat
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: on their employer? You know, I come into work here
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: at ZB I'm not also you know, working on another
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: radio station doing a bit of side hustle for R
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: and Z at the same time. They can use multiple
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: apps on their phones, can't they? Does that not make
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: them different?
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's one of the things that is called of
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: peel head to look at in terms of Uber drivers
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: are in set employees or contractors as one of the
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: parts of your bals to what extends you and your questions?
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I have to look at us to what extend to
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: you and business on your own account. And did actually
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: specifically look at the issue of are these drivers able
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: to sort of, let's just say, be on the w
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: app for multiple rietier companies at the same time. And
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: while it accepted that in theory they could, they said
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: that in reality they're not actually going to be doing that,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: at least based on evidence in front of it, and
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: that the drivers will be having to potentially work just
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: peoper at one particular time, and if they want to
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: then log off and work for someone else, and that's
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: their own choice. But that's more akin to what the
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: casual employee might be able to do rather than a
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: true person who's in business on their own account.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: So yeah, good point, Alie to thank you for that.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Alis to sp employment lawyer, So I think I think
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: be careful what you wish for. Obviously, you want to
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: have the conditions, and you want to have the holiday pay,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: and you want to be able to unionize, et cetera.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: But if that pushes the costs back up, and will
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: people jump back in cabs For.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: More from news talks, there'd be listen live on air
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: or online and
• 2:49
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• 2:51
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