Court: Uber drivers were deemed to be ‘workers’

A landmark ruling that Uber drivers are “workers” ignored the fact that the relationship between the company and its drivers is “typical of the private hire industry”, the Court of Appeal has heard.

The ride-hailing firm is attempting to overturn employment tribunal findings which could pave the way for tens of thousands of its UK drivers to receive the national minimum wage.

At a hearing in London yesterday, counsel for Uber said “the agency model” – with Uber acting as an agent between drivers and passengers – has been used in the private hire industry “for many years”.

Dinah Rose QC, for Uber, said Uber was not “unusual” because of the relationship between it and its drivers, “but because the Uber app enables it to operate on a much larger scale than traditional minicab companies”.

Last November, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) dismissed Uber’s appeal against an earlier tribunal ruling that former drivers and coclaimants Yaseen Aslam and James Farrar were “workers” at the time they were operating for Uber.

Uber contends that both tribunals “erred in law” in concluding that the pair were workers, submitting that it “wrongly disregarded the written contracts in which the parties’ agreements were recorded”.

Ms Rose argued that the tribunals “misunderstood or failed to apply basic principles of agency law” and had “treated as bizarre or absurd normal relationships widespread in the industry”.

Jason Galbraith-Marten QC, for Mr Aslam and Mr Farrar, said there was “no express agreement” by which the claimants appointed Uber “to act as their agent and setting out the nature and extent of that agency”.

He added that, if Uber was not acting as the drivers’ agent, “the purported driver-passenger contract is indeed a fiction”.

Master of the Rolls Sir Terence Etherton, Lord Justice Underhill and Lord Justice Bean, who will hear arguments from parties at a two-day hearing, are expected to reserve their judgment in the case.