Hailing a ride / Andrea Piacquadio, Pexels
It's been a while since I made use of any ride hailing service — late 2019 to be exact. That changed in December 2021 when I dropped my mother's car off for a valet service and needed a lift back home. This time around, I used Bolt.
It turned out that my Bolt driver also drives for Uber and for Didi (the newest entry into the Gauteng market). He has three phones — one for each service — and picks up rides on whichever app pops up in turn.
He's very happy with this setup even though the various companies pay different rates at different times.
And this suddenly made me realize how behind the times labour laws are in many parts of the world.
Many courts in many parts of the world have heard class action suits on behalf of drivers.
In the UK a year ago, the Supreme Court ruled that Uber drivers are “workers” in terms of UK labour legislation and not "independent contractors". As such, they are entitled to the national minimum wage and leave pay.
France's Cour de Cassation issued a similar ruling last year saying: “When connecting to the Uber digital platform, a relationship of subordination is established between the driver and the company. Hence, the driver does not provide services as a self-employed person, but as an employee.”
Also last year, a Superior Court judge overruled Proposition 22 , a ballot measure allowing economy companies to treat drivers as independent contractors.
I understand well-meaning people wanting to provide health care and maternity benefits and sick leave and overtime pay. But these good intentions are paving a road to hell because the math does not add up.
Uber said in the California matter that 90% of their 1,2 million drivers throughout the United States work less than 40 hours per week, 80% work less than 20 hours per week. Uber said that if they were required to classify drivers as employees, they would terminate 80% of their drivers because their nationwide business can only support 250 000 full-time jobs.
My Bolt driver doesn't give a rat's ass about that. He's happy to work for whomever he chooses whenever he chooses. I would rather more people like him were employed than a smaller number having sheltered employment.
