Uber and workers’ rights
Today Uber headed back to court to appeal the ruling that the drivers who work for them are, in fact, workers and are entitled to workers’ rights.
I joined United Private Hire Drivers and Independent Workers Union of Great Britain to show our support for people in precarious employment. We cannot tolerate degraded working conditions that strip people of basic rights like a guaranteed minimum wage, holiday pay and occupational safety.
I’ve met with many Uber drivers who have told me about the long hours they work. Tired drivers shouldn’t feel that have no choice but to keep working to make ends meet.
New technology is changing the way businesses are run but this shouldn’t come at the cost of a rollback on employment rights.
The ‘gig economy’ doesn’t work for people who need fulltime, steady employment and security. It results instead in ‘sweated labour’.
Earlier this year the Assembly agreed my motion asking the Mayor to lobby government for powers to make workers’ rights a condition of all future private hire operator licenses. You can read more on that here: https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/assembly/make-workers-rights-a-condition-for-ph-licenses