"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 09:44:54 on Sat, 29 Oct 2016,
tim... remarked:

Uber, on the other hand, have stuck their head in the sand and said the
ruling only applies to the two drivers who brought the case.

And they wonder why people think so little of their practices.

Tis the typical response from any company who have just lost at an ET

They just need a holding position whilst they get their lawyers to look at
it to see what is the basis for an appeal.

And whilst I don't like Uber's MO from a competition POV, looking down the
list of reasons why the tribunal ruled that the drivers are workers the
only ones that seem to me to be an unreasonable practice is that of not
telling divers where the pick up wants to go to and penalising drivers for
not accepting pick ups.

The rest don't seem the slightest bit unreasonable IMHO

Isn't it about lawfulness, rather than reasonableness?

But all the stuff in the press (well on the TV) has been union officials
crowing about how this will stop employers exploiting employees

And in this particular case, I can't see that there's any exploitation at
all

I repeat what I, sort of, said before. The taxi cab model only works if
drivers are SE.

Anything else leads either to no taxi cabs at all. Or a luxury-style
limousine service only

I too think the drivers are asking too much for some of the things like
holiday pay, although this is in danger of getting into a wider debate
about "zero-hours" contracts.

They weren't asking for any specific set of things

they just wanted to be classed as "workers" so that they could claim minimum
wage for all of the hours that they spent sitting in a cab "waiting" for a
ride.

All the rest came along in the bundle.

And if they think that the MO of paying drivers for sitting around waiting
for a ride is sustainable they are idiots (well, they are cab drivers so
that isn't an unlikely possibility).

All that it will result in is them not being able to log on for work during
slack hours and, instead of getting 4 pounds an hour from those hours they
will get nothing. (And bearing in mind that the 4 pounds is after they
have paid for some of the fixed costs of owing a car, costs which will still
have to be paid, they will be earning a nett negative amount from those lost
hours).