U.K. Court Upholds Ruling Granting Uber Drivers Worker Rights
Uber plans to appeal the decision, which would likely boost the company’s labor costs if upheld
Uber Technologies Inc. may have to grant its U.K. drivers benefits such as paid vacations and a minimum wage after a British court on Wednesday confirmed lower-court decisions granting the drivers a type of employment status.
If upheld, the ruling could significantly boost Uber’s costs in the U.K., where the ride-hailing company says it has roughly 60,000 drivers.
Uber said it would appeal the decision to the U.K.’s Supreme Court, arguing that taxi and car-service drivers have long been independent contractors, and changing their status would reduce workers’ flexibility.
“If drivers were classified as workers they would inevitably lose some of the freedom and flexibility that comes with being their own boss,” Uber said.
The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain, which represented the Uber drivers in the case, applauded the decision and described Uber’s plan to appeal as “nothing more than a cynical ploy to delay inevitable changes to its business model.”
Wednesday’s decision is the latest chapter in a global battle over how to regulate employment in the so-called gig economy, where apps distribute individual tasks to a pool of people that the app makers regard as independent contractors.
Labor activists in the U.S. and Europe have launched an array of lawsuits demanding additional rights and benefits for those workers. In response, companies like Uber have been sweetening their benefits, while fighting the lawsuits.
Uber scored a victory in the U.S. in the fall when a federal appeals court dismantled the class-action status of Uber drivers who were seeking to be reclassified as employees, meaning that each would have to pursue their claims individually.
At the same time Uber has been adding benefits for its employees. In June, the San Francisco-based company began offering some paid sick leave and other benefits—such as paid maternity and paternity leave—to about 150,000 of its drivers and couriers in the European Union.
At issue in the U.K. case, first decided in 2016, is whether Uber is contracting people to provide the company with driving services, or whether, as Uber contends, it is an intermediary brokering transactions between riders and drivers by offering booking and payment services.
Two of the three judges in Wednesday’s decision found the former to be the case, which they say qualifies the drivers as “workers” under British law. That status falls somewhere between being an independent contractor and a full employee.
One judge dissented, arguing that the drivers are not actually working for Uber as with the traditional car-service industry, where drivers are generally independent contractors.
“Standing back so as to be able to see the wood as well as the trees, it still seems to me that the relationship argued for by Uber is neither unrealistic nor artificial,” the judge, Nicholas Underhill, wrote.
Write to Sam Schechner at sam.schechner@wsj.com