Uber BV v Aslam

The appellants, Uber BV and its UK subsidiaries, appeal against a decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal that drivers who work through the Uber app are "workers" within the meaning of UK employment law and so entitled to the statutory rights that this status confers. The respondents, individual drivers, cross-appeal against a decision that they were not working within the meaning of the Working Time Regulations 1998 when logged into the Uber app but not at that time ready and willing to accept a trip. The central question on the appeal is whether the drivers work for Uber under workers' contracts or whether they work for themselves as independent contractors. If the drivers work for Uber under workers' contracts, a secondary question is whether the employment tribunal was also entitled to find that the drivers who have brought the present claims were working under such contracts whenever they were logged into the Uber app within the territory in which they were licensed to operate and ready and willing to accept trips; or whether, as Uber argues, they were working only when driving passengers to their destinations. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and allowed the cross-appeal. The drivers' contracts with Uber BV did not support Uber's contention that the drivers were not working under contracts with Uber. The contractual documents could not be treated as the starting point in determining whether the drivers were entitled to statutory protection as workers. The task was to determine whether the drivers fell within the statutory definition of a "worker" so as to qualify for these rights. The statutory definition includes individuals who, although not employed under contracts of employment, work under "any other contract... whereby the individual undertakes to do or perform personally any work or services for another party whose status is not by virtue of the contract that of a client or customer of any profession or business undertaking carried on by the individual". The drivers performed driving services for passengers through the Uber app, but they did not do so as independent contractors. They did so under contracts with Uber. The employment tribunal was entitled to find that a driver logged onto the Uber app in London, and within the territory in which he was licensed to operate, came within the definition of a "worker" by entering into a contract with Uber whereby he undertook to perform driving services for Uber. There was no basis for interfering with the tribunal's conclusion that periods during which the drivers were logged onto the Uber app in London, within the territory in which they were licensed to operate and ready and willing to accept trips, counted as "working time" for the purposes of the Working Time Regulations 1998.