Description
On 15 January 2021, the Lyon Court of Appeal ruled that an Uber driver shall be classified as an independent contractor, adding that the driver who brought the complaint is ‘free to connect [to the app] when he wants, or not to connect, and hence to not work’. The Lyon court backed Uber’s arguments, stating that ‘no contractual provision obliges the driver to work through the Uber platform’, ‘no exclusivity clause is contractually stipulated’, and the driver has no ‘fixed fee’ imposed on him — he is only paid for completed rides. Most recently, a Belgian administrative commission ruled that an Uber driver should be considered an employee, as the ride-hailing app’s employment conditions prevented him from operating as an independent worker. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is calling for an EU action on the labour rights of platform workers, pointing to recent rulings in Belgium, Italy and Spain.
- Keywords
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employment status
- Actors
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Platform,
Employee organisation,
Court
- Sector
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Transportation and storage