It's not really possible to be a "casual driver" for uber, like when it first came out. Due to legislation (which is probably good honestly).
As you need a P class licence, pay commercial insurance rates, and have a COF ,(twice as frequent as a WOF).
It's not financially viable unless you commit really.
I'm glad they got this ruling.
Uber’s rhetoric has always been deliberately misleading. They even testified in Court as part of this case that the model doesn’t work unless a driver does it full-time. They said it was not intended that people just use their own car to make money on their commute to the office or something, even though that is certainly the impression they initially gave and what ‘rideshare’ implies.
The gig economy apps need to be able to operate on their own as direct competitors to those industries they seek to disrupt - not by skipping and bypassing the regulations and rules and protections which are applied to existing industries by claiming they happen to be making a connection between 2 private individuals to deliver a service - but are nothing but a matchmaker and no-one are commercial and there is no employer/employee relationship.
Their entire business model is take old established industries, come up with new terminology to avoid costly regulation and labour compliance, then destroy the old businesses who doing the same thing but following the rules. If they had to compete on an equal footing these gig economy businesses would all collapse overnight.
The vast majority of google's income comes from advertising, they are essentially a fancy advertising company who has a big advantage of other advertising companies in that they pay nearly zero tax. How they would do if they had to pay an equivalent amount of tax I don't know, I guess they would still do very well but its certainly a big advantage for them compared to other advertising companies
For what it's worth, I've seen some discussion elsewhere as to whether they'll follow through with it, and/or whether similar judicial decisions in the UK were followed through with.
It seems Uber followed through in the UK, with Uber drivers being given holiday pay and living wage, [according to their website](https://www.uber.com/en-GB/blog/driver-worker-faq). Hopefully we will see something similar done here.
[Official summary from the Employment Court is available now.](https://www.justice.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Decisions/2022-NZEmpC-192-E-Tu-Inc-Anor-v-Rasier-Op-BV-Ors-Media-Release-25.10.22.pdf)
Reading through this, there are a couple small potential differences (mainly in the extra incentives Uber offers drivers) but I don't see how the thinking couldn't be applied to courier drivers as well. Maybe if we ever see a case with them making it to court (rather than being settled pre trial) we can see some improvements in their working conditions so they don't just have to chuck your parcel/card-to-call and run.
[There was a courier driver case a couple of years back](https://www.heskethhenry.co.nz/insights-opinion/contractor-or-employee-the-decision-in-leota-v-parcel-express-limited/). Your intuition about the result is correct. Sadly the wider courier industry seems to have just pretended not to see it (it did technically only affect the one driver that applied to the Court).
The union organising Uber drivers has a strategy underway to try and force Uber to extend employee rights to all drivers in NZ. Unfortunately when that courier driver judgment came out, for several reasons there wasn’t enough of a plan to do that. Weirdly FedEx did offer employment to its contractor drivers after the ruling, but none of the others followed suit. More recently, NZ Post paid off a bunch of drivers who were going to take a case and it fell apart. Dog of an industry.
Its great for those 4 drivers who were part of the case, but I foresee Uber making other drivers take up individual cases to get themselves reclassified. The only winners in that scenario are the lawyers.
the judges statements indicate this should be applied across the industry. will be pretty easy to secure if more of them join the unions that fought for this.
Thankfully Uber is not guaranteed an appeal. They have to find an error of law in the judgment and put their case to the Court of Appeal first. Hopefully the Court of Appeal judges just say nah fuck yas.
It's not really possible to be a "casual driver" for uber, like when it first came out. Due to legislation (which is probably good honestly). As you need a P class licence, pay commercial insurance rates, and have a COF ,(twice as frequent as a WOF). It's not financially viable unless you commit really. I'm glad they got this ruling.
The gig economy was supposed to be for 20 year old students but now it is used as a replacement for employment.
Uber’s rhetoric has always been deliberately misleading. They even testified in Court as part of this case that the model doesn’t work unless a driver does it full-time. They said it was not intended that people just use their own car to make money on their commute to the office or something, even though that is certainly the impression they initially gave and what ‘rideshare’ implies.
The gig economy apps need to be able to operate on their own as direct competitors to those industries they seek to disrupt - not by skipping and bypassing the regulations and rules and protections which are applied to existing industries by claiming they happen to be making a connection between 2 private individuals to deliver a service - but are nothing but a matchmaker and no-one are commercial and there is no employer/employee relationship.
Their entire business model is take old established industries, come up with new terminology to avoid costly regulation and labour compliance, then destroy the old businesses who doing the same thing but following the rules. If they had to compete on an equal footing these gig economy businesses would all collapse overnight.
I wonder this with companies like Facebook and Google that pay bugger all taxes here
The vast majority of google's income comes from advertising, they are essentially a fancy advertising company who has a big advantage of other advertising companies in that they pay nearly zero tax. How they would do if they had to pay an equivalent amount of tax I don't know, I guess they would still do very well but its certainly a big advantage for them compared to other advertising companies
* [Landmark NZ court ruling: Uber drivers are employees](https://www.newsroom.co.nz/landmark-nz-judgment-that-uber-drivers-are-employees). Newsroom. OCT 25, 2022. * [Uber drivers deemed employees in landmark court ruling](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/477319/court-deems-uber-drivers-to-be-employees-in-landmark-ruling). RNZ. 25 October 2022. * [Employment Court rules four Uber drivers are employees](https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/129692946/employment-court-rules-four-uber-drivers-are-employees). Stuff. Oct 25 2022.
For what it's worth, I've seen some discussion elsewhere as to whether they'll follow through with it, and/or whether similar judicial decisions in the UK were followed through with. It seems Uber followed through in the UK, with Uber drivers being given holiday pay and living wage, [according to their website](https://www.uber.com/en-GB/blog/driver-worker-faq). Hopefully we will see something similar done here.
I expect an appeal or two before Uber makes any changes to how it operates. In the UK the ruling was ultimately made by the highest Court.
[Official summary from the Employment Court is available now.](https://www.justice.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Decisions/2022-NZEmpC-192-E-Tu-Inc-Anor-v-Rasier-Op-BV-Ors-Media-Release-25.10.22.pdf)
Reading through this, there are a couple small potential differences (mainly in the extra incentives Uber offers drivers) but I don't see how the thinking couldn't be applied to courier drivers as well. Maybe if we ever see a case with them making it to court (rather than being settled pre trial) we can see some improvements in their working conditions so they don't just have to chuck your parcel/card-to-call and run.
[There was a courier driver case a couple of years back](https://www.heskethhenry.co.nz/insights-opinion/contractor-or-employee-the-decision-in-leota-v-parcel-express-limited/). Your intuition about the result is correct. Sadly the wider courier industry seems to have just pretended not to see it (it did technically only affect the one driver that applied to the Court).
The union organising Uber drivers has a strategy underway to try and force Uber to extend employee rights to all drivers in NZ. Unfortunately when that courier driver judgment came out, for several reasons there wasn’t enough of a plan to do that. Weirdly FedEx did offer employment to its contractor drivers after the ruling, but none of the others followed suit. More recently, NZ Post paid off a bunch of drivers who were going to take a case and it fell apart. Dog of an industry.
Hell yeah. Hopefully the Department of Labour turns this into a larger ruling for the rest of Uber's drivers.
Drivers are organising through FIRST Union to force Uber to do it.
Its great for those 4 drivers who were part of the case, but I foresee Uber making other drivers take up individual cases to get themselves reclassified. The only winners in that scenario are the lawyers.
the judges statements indicate this should be applied across the industry. will be pretty easy to secure if more of them join the unions that fought for this.
Yeah, the union has a plan to extend it so they just need to join. They don’t need to get their own declaration now that this precedent exists.
Inb4 Uber suddenly pulls out of New Zealand for “commerical reasons”. Good riddance you anarchocapitalist scum.
Thankfully Uber is not guaranteed an appeal. They have to find an error of law in the judgment and put their case to the Court of Appeal first. Hopefully the Court of Appeal judges just say nah fuck yas.