# Sacked driver says UberEats model is 'based on fiction'



## UberDriverAU (Nov 4, 2015)

Interesting, this appears to be the first time a driver has had legal representation in Australia. That should result in a better legal argument. The TWU is funding the case, and Mark Gibian SC will be arguing it.

https://amp.smh.com.au/business/wor...te-seeks-tribunal-appeal-20191115-p53b2f.html


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## Eddie Dingle (Sep 23, 2019)

Is she sacked? Or does she just not have access to the app any more? That's the problem I think.Everybody want's uber to mend it's ways which is fair enough. I wonder if what might work is local efforts possibly non profit gig type companies come in and push uber out by being fair to everybody and not seeking to join the stock market. The apps involved are not really the the golden goose uber makes them out to be. An open source model would be a good way to go. It wouldn't have to be super expensive.


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## Cold Fusion (Aug 28, 2019)

UberDriverAU said:


> Interesting, this appears to be the first time a driver has had legal representation in Australia. That should result in a better legal argument. The TWU is funding the case, and Mark Gibian SC will be arguing it.
> 
> https://amp.smh.com.au/business/wor...te-seeks-tribunal-appeal-20191115-p53b2f.html


Only Down Under do they Fight for, and demand reinstatement
To a Shit Gig.


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## Eddie Dingle (Sep 23, 2019)

Cold Fusion said:


> Only Down Under do they Fight for, and demand reinstatement
> To a Shit Gig.


That was my first thought too. But this is actually unions trying to get the courts to set a precedent and claim that uber is behaving like an employer.


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## UberDriverAU (Nov 4, 2015)

Eddie Dingle said:


> That was my first thought too. But this is actually unions trying to get the courts to set a precedent and claim that uber is behaving like an employer.


In Australia if you act like an employer then you are an employer. Nothing you put in a contract can make it otherwise. And it certainly wouldn't be a precedent, companies have been trying to pretend they're not employers for a long long time.


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## Miguel_Sanchez (Aug 22, 2019)

But there’s no way a court will find that a “driver partner” is an employee of Uber. We can pick our hours and days, which trips we accept and decline, whether we want to work on other platforms at the same time. If there’s something good on TV you can decide you’re not going out that night. If you do go out and halfway through the night you get a text from a female acquaintance asking you to come over, you can log off and high-tail it to her place. That’s not the sort of freedom an employee gets.

About the only thing you can’t do is get someone else to do the work on your behalf (which it sounds like the “dismissed” driver did in this case). But Uber will say that’s for logistical and insurance reasons, and it won’t outweigh all the other factors. Its so clear-cut in my mind, I can’t see why an SC would even take on the argument to be honest.


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## UberDriverAU (Nov 4, 2015)

Miguel_Sanchez said:


> But there's no way a court will find that a "driver partner" is an employee of Uber. We can pick our hours and days, which trips we accept and decline, whether we want to work on other platforms at the same time.


 That's an often asserted reason why we can't possibly be an employee. The only problem is our courts have consistently said the ability to decline work can't discriminate between a casual employee and an independent contractor. You can be a casual employee of all of McDonald's, KFC, and Hungry Jack, but what you can't do is work overlapping shifts. Likewise for Uber, Ola, Didi, etc, you can't take simultaneous trips between providers.


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## Miguel_Sanchez (Aug 22, 2019)

UberDriverAU said:


> That's an often asserted reason why we can't possibly be an employee. The only problem is our courts have consistently said the ability to decline work can't discriminate between a casual employee and an independent contractor. You can be a casual employee of all of McDonald's, KFC, and Hungry Jack, but what you can't do is work overlapping shifts. Likewise for Uber, Ola, Didi, etc, you can't take simultaneous trips between providers.


You can't take "simultaneous" trips between providers because it's logistically impossible, but (I assume, I'm only on UE) you can have multiple platforms running and in any given hour do a delivery for UE, then one for Deliveroo, then back to UE.

That'd be like working for 20 minutes at Maccas then wandering across the food court and frying up some chicken at KFC. Which of course a casual employee can't do.


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## UberDriverAU (Nov 4, 2015)

Miguel_Sanchez said:


> You can't take "simultaneous" trips between providers because it's logistically impossible, but (I assume, I'm only on UE) you can have multiple platforms running and in any given hour do a delivery for UE, then one for Deliveroo, then back to UE.


There's no technical reason why you couldn't run your own version of Uber Pool. The reality is though, you'd quickly find yourself deactivated if you tried. Being "online" on multiple platforms at the same time isn't the same thing as doing work (ie. carrying passengers) for multiple platforms at the same time.


Miguel_Sanchez said:


> That'd be like working for 20 minutes at Maccas then wandering across the food court and frying up some chicken at KFC. Which of course a casual employee can't do.


That's different because both companies would be paying you for the same time rather than paying for non-overlapping time. You'd quickly find yourself sacked if you tried something like that, because your time is supposed to be exclusively with one of them. A more comparable scenario would be working for Maccas on Fri night, KFC on Sat night, and HJs on Sun night. There's nothing wrong with that, and you'd be an employee of all of them rather than an independent contractor.


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## Jack Malarkey (Jan 11, 2016)

In the Foodora case, various state revenue offices raised payroll tax liabilities against Foodora but appear not to have done so against Uber Eats, suggesting they consider the position to be different.


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## UberDriverAU (Nov 4, 2015)

Jack Malarkey said:


> In the Foodora case, various state revenue offices raised payroll tax liabilities against Foodora but appear not to have done so against Uber Eats, suggesting they consider the position to be different.


If I recall Jack, Foodora workers had to do set shifts didn't they? That level of control over hours worked would be even more indicative of employment than Uber's setup, because then you could reasonably argue you're a permanent full-time or part-time employee.


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## Jack Malarkey (Jan 11, 2016)

UberDriverAU said:


> If I recall Jack, Foodora workers had to do set shifts didn't they? That level of control over hours worked would be even more indicative of employment than Uber's setup, because then you could reasonably argue you're a permanent full-time or part-time employee.


Yes, the Foodora workers did do set shifts.


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## TheDevilisaParttimer (Jan 2, 2019)

UberDriverAU said:


> There's no technical reason why you couldn't run your own version of Uber Pool. The reality is though, you'd quickly find yourself deactivated if you tried. Being "online" on multiple platforms at the same time isn't the same thing as doing work (ie. carrying passengers) for multiple platforms at the same time.
> 
> That's different because both companies would be paying you for the same time rather than paying for non-overlapping time. You'd quickly find yourself sacked if you tried something like that, because your time is supposed to be exclusively with one of them. A more comparable scenario would be working for Maccas on Fri night, KFC on Sat night, and HJs on Sun night. There's nothing wrong with that, and you'd be an employee of all of them rather than an independent contractor.


Well spoken and articulated argument &#129309;


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## Raider82 (Mar 22, 2017)

I’d like to know what 10 minutes late means. Did she arrive at the drop off location and sit there for 10 minutes?

Then there’s the claim that if you don’t accept, your rating goes down and you get deactivated. Sorry but as far as I’m aware that’s false. The acceptance rate goes down, but you don’t get deactivated for a low acceptance rate.

Also the whole you’re obligated to accept because the app logs you out thing ... sure it’s annoying, but you can just log back in and keep going.

I’m no Uber shill, far from it. But if she goes to court with the arguments presented in the article, Uber’s lawyers are going to have a field day.


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## Raider82 (Mar 22, 2017)

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-16/uber-eats-fwc-appeal-unfair-dismissal/11516808
This article has some more information. So she accepted and then cancelled over 240 requests, and let another 550 go unaccepted, but complains she didn't earn enough money? Sounds like she could have easily made a lot more.

Complains that she only made $300 in 96 hours when she has let nearly 800 delivery jobs pass her by, sorry but that's her own fault. You don't have to accept every ping, but don't accept and then cancel over 200 times.

She had a satisfaction rating under 85%, how do you even do that on Eats?

I think the TWU have backed the wrong horse on this one, which is a shame because they generally make some pretty good points. But this just sounds like a bad driver to me.


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