I use my own equipment, set my own hours, perform tasks with autonomy (I can choose whatever route I or the rider wants) and have no supervision. I can also work for Lyft simultaneously if I want.
Is that so different from, say, an unskilled landscaper asking for $50/h and being passed over for the long line of other landscapers willing to work for $10/h? I don't think the definition of being self-employed or being a contractor includes pricing power.
Are you functionally able to set your rates or is this only a theoretical thing? If you can’t functionally set your rates you aren’t really self-employed.
Likewise I can contact Uber and tell them I want $5/mile and they will say no and then tell me I can continue to accept rides at the bid or stay home.
Finally I can work for Juno, or by getting my own insurance and coding my own app, or for Lyft, or a mixture of the above. This is absolutely distinct from any real employment I've ever had.
Furthermore, your examples are pretty dumb -- what if you want to work for less to have more rides to make it up in volume? You couldn't do that either. The fact that you cannot set prices means you're not self employed. The fact that you can set your own hours and use an app is irrelevant.
The fact of the matter is that you cannot dictate your own price using Uber or Lyft. Uber drivers are employees, and Britain agrees [1].
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/10/uber-lose...
Also, as noted in your article, regular taxi drivers in the UK have always been considered self employed contractors despite also having no ability to change the regulated meter rate. So this whole pricing argument is invalid and inconsistent with historical interpretations.
Another example is doctors here in Canada who bill out to the government at a fixed price schedule. Are they not self employed either? After all, they all bill the same entity and are not allowed to set their own prices.
Yes, you have no commitment to them except following the very stringent rules and regulations set by them, without exception, when you decide to work for them.
> So this whole pricing argument is invalid and inconsistent with historical interpretations.
Merely being not being able to set your own price is not what makes you an employee. The distinction is a tax one, concerning benefits among other things. All "historical interpretations" are ultimately arbitrary like the very distinction between self-employed vs. employed. In the case of Britain, their opinion is pretty clear on this in respect to Uber.
> Another example is doctors here in Canada who bill out to the government at a fixed price schedule. Are they not self employed either? After all, they all bill the same entity and are not allowed to set their own prices.
I know nothing of Canadian doctors to say one way or another. Regardless, the distinction between being an independent contractor vs. an employee and being "self employed" or not are two different conversations. You can be legally an employee and be self employed, e.g. an entrepreneur. You can also be self-employed yet not be an employee, e.g. an independent contractor.
Uber is attempting to argue that its workers are both self employed and independent contractors, yet lack the full autonomy that someone in that position would have, notably, being able to set one's own prices and work environment.
A hypothetical service where you set your own price and profile, ala eBay + Thumbtack and are chosen would be the scenario that Uber supposes its drivers are already in.
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This pretty much summarizes it: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=4a493c30-578d...
However, regular taxi drivers in the UK and elsewhere are subject to almost all the same “suggestive of employee” points and have been uncontroversially classified as self-employed contractors for decades. Especially if you consider Uber to be the modern equivalent of a combination of the old system of taxi regulator, dispatcher, and payment processor. This despite regular taxi drivers also generally not using their own equipment or having as much control over their working hours.
For this reason the EAT decision smells like politically motivated bias again Uber.
Heh, no doubt about that. The decision actually had a bit of controversy for that reason.
An Uber driver has no such opportunity to interact with the client in that manner.
This is why I'm happy Germany banned Uber from operating here. I'd love to have more competition in the taxi market (which is ridiculously expensive here). But not at the cost of millions of workers.
We need regulation against Bogus self-employment to be enforced. A person who can only work for one company is not self-employed. At the very least we need gig economy companies to compete for the labor force to ensure that market rates go up.