NZ Employment Court: Uber drivers are employees and not independent contracors

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#2988666 27-Oct-2022 12:06

johno1234:

Four drivers out of hundreds have sought this change. Every single one of them entered into their arrangement agreeing specifically to not be employees. Changing your mind and then throwing all the other drivers’ status into question is bullshit.

No, what's bullshit is Uber claiming that the drivers are contractors to avoid having to meet employment standards, then exerting a level of control that clearly steps so far over the employment line. Like I said, there's a simple solution for Uber - exert less control. Stop penalising cancellations, and provide all the information necessary to make informed business decisions to the driver (which, by the way, would have the side effect of reducing cancellations!)

Your take is just wrong.

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#2988669 27-Oct-2022 12:20

Kyanar:

No, what's bullshit is Uber claiming that the drivers are contractors to avoid having to meet employment standards,

It's only BS if you view NZ's employment standards as reasonable, which a lot of NZ employers don't, never mind American ones who are used to being able to fire people at will for any reason. While I'm under no illusions that Uber is force for good, I'm honestly more sympathetic to them given I find NZ's employment laws very tilted in favour of employee's rather than employers.

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#2988673 27-Oct-2022 12:31

Lias:

I'm honestly more sympathetic to them given I find NZ's employment laws very tilted in favour of employee's rather than employers.

They're 'tilted' against crappy employers, sure.

If that's employer's go-to pattern of behaviour to the extent that people need that degree of protection then I'd say the laws are exactly where they need to be.

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#2988738 27-Oct-2022 13:53

Nobody compelled the 4 drivers to drive Uber. If they don't want to be Uber contractors then don't be one. Don't agree to be a contractor then renege and claim to be an employee. Just leave. There are plenty of other driving jobs available.

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#2988739 27-Oct-2022 13:56

Kyanar:

johno1234:

Four drivers out of hundreds have sought this change. Every single one of them entered into their arrangement agreeing specifically to not be employees. Changing your mind and then throwing all the other drivers’ status into question is bullshit.

No, what's bullshit is Uber claiming that the drivers are contractors to avoid having to meet employment standards, then exerting a level of control that clearly steps so far over the employment line. Like I said, there's a simple solution for Uber - exert less control. Stop penalising cancellations, and provide all the information necessary to make informed business decisions to the driver (which, by the way, would have the side effect of reducing cancellations!)

Your take is just wrong.

It wasn't just Uber claiming the drivers are contractors - the drivers agreed that they are too. They entered into a signed contract willingly.

"Your take is just wrong" ... oh please, proof by blatant assertion?

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#2988743 27-Oct-2022 14:05

johno1234:

Nobody compelled the 4 drivers to drive Uber. If they don't want to be Uber contractors then don't be one. Don't agree to be a contractor then renege and claim to be an employee. Just leave. There are plenty of other driving jobs available.

Maybe if people didn't try to pass off jobs that are functionally employee roles as contractor ones in a bid to weasel out of obligations to employees then this wouldn't be a problem.

The ruling is super, super clear on a point of already well-understood law which is the substance of an agreement counts, not whether someone writes 'Contractor' at the top of the first page.

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#2988746 27-Oct-2022 14:10

GV27:

johno1234:

Nobody compelled the 4 drivers to drive Uber. If they don't want to be Uber contractors then don't be one. Don't agree to be a contractor then renege and claim to be an employee. Just leave. There are plenty of other driving jobs available.

Maybe if people didn't try to pass off jobs that are functionally employee roles as contractor ones in a bid to weasel out of obligations to employees then this wouldn't be a problem.

The ruling is super, super clear on a point of already well-understood law which is the substance of an agreement counts, not whether someone writes 'Contractor' at the top of the first page.

Were the working conditions spelled out in the contract that these drivers signed?

Kyanar

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#2988750 27-Oct-2022 14:19

johno1234:

It wasn't just Uber claiming the drivers are contractors - the drivers agreed that they are too. They entered into a signed contract willingly.

"Your take is just wrong" ... oh please, proof by blatant assertion?

You're still wrong. You literally cannot enter into a contract saying you're a contractor if you're an employee. The law literally has a section that says "No Contracting Out" that prevents this.

So no, not proof by blatant assertion, proof by actually reading the judgement and the law.

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#2988751 27-Oct-2022 14:20

johno1234:

Nobody compelled the 4 drivers to drive Uber. If they don't want to be Uber contractors then don't be one. Don't agree to be a contractor then renege and claim to be an employee. Just leave. There are plenty of other driving jobs available.

They weren't Uber contractors. They were Uber employees.

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#2988757 27-Oct-2022 14:28

johno1234:

Were the working conditions spelled out in the contract that these drivers signed?

That's literally the point. The actual conditions of the contract are functionally that of an employer/employee relationship.

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#2988764 27-Oct-2022 14:35

johno1234:

It wasn't just Uber claiming the drivers are contractors - the drivers agreed that they are too. They entered into a signed contract willingly.

"Your take is just wrong" ... oh please, proof by blatant assertion?

This path of questioning whether a "contractor" is actually an employee has been traversed before,

in the late 2000s a worker at WETA took a case that also claimed that he was an employee ( even though his contract specifically stated he was a contractor)

After bouncing through the Employment court and court of appeal , which respectively concluded that he was an employee and then not, The Supreme court decided that he was an Employee, and that the general terms and conditions in the film sector were akin to employment rather than contracting....

In that case the Government rode to the aid of the Film sector (which threatened to blacklist NZ) and passed special legislation that excluded film workers from becoming employees. aka the "Hobbit" law

Just because you sign a piece of paper that says contractor, you are not exempt from the laws of NZ that define what the conditions of a contactor must be ( and ipso facto what must be proven to be an Employee)

The current Government will not ride to UBER's defence in this situation, so there are going to be some very serious $$$ conversations at UBER regarding whether they find a model for their NZ business that is both legal and viable...

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#2988770 27-Oct-2022 14:44

wellygary:

johno1234:

It wasn't just Uber claiming the drivers are contractors - the drivers agreed that they are too. They entered into a signed contract willingly.

"Your take is just wrong" ... oh please, proof by blatant assertion?

This path of questioning whether a "contractor" is actually an employee has been traversed before,

in the late 2000s a worker at WETA took a case that also claimed that he was an employee ( even though his contract specifically stated he was a contractor)

After bouncing through the Employment court and court of appeal , which respectively concluded that he was an employee and then not, The Supreme court decided that he was an Employee, and that the general terms and conditions in the film sector were akin to employment rather than contracting....

In that case the Government rode to the aid of the Film sector (which threatened to blacklist NZ) and passed special legislation that excluded film workers from becoming employees. aka the "Hobbit" law

Just because you sign a piece of paper that says contractor, you are not exempt from the laws of NZ that define what the conditions of a contactor must be ( and ipso facto what must be proven to be an Employee)

The current Government will not ride to UBER's defence in this situation, so there are going to be some very serious $$$ conversations at UBER regarding whether they find a model for their NZ business that is both legal and viable...

And not just Uber...

Lias

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#2988820 27-Oct-2022 14:53

wellygary:

The current Government will not ride to UBER's defence in this situation, so there are going to be some very serious $$$ conversations at UBER regarding whether they find a model for their NZ business that is both legal and viable...

Which loops us back to we are either going to pay through the nose for, or lose, a variety of services, because our employment laws are IMHO overly restrictive and anti employer.

Personally my vote would firmly be for liberalizing our employment laws to ensure we don't lose the convenience of the gig economy.

GV27

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#2988825 27-Oct-2022 14:59

Lias:

Personally my vote would firmly be for liberalizing our employment laws to ensure we don't lose the convenience of the gig economy.

The convenience of the gig economy? It's convenient for employers who want to keep low headcounts and undermine others in the same industries who actually employ people.

We already have massively reduced redundancy provisions compared to ten years ago, our company super contributions are pathetic compared to Australia and we work some of the longest hours in the developed world for pay that comes nowhere close to covering our living costs.

Falling even further behind because we want to be able to retain huge multinational companies who run at super-massive losses for years at a time in our country doesn't seem like a great deal.

wellygary

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#2988826 27-Oct-2022 15:00

Lias:

Which loops us back to we are either going to pay through the nose for, or lose, a variety of services, because our employment laws are IMHO overly restrictive and anti employer.

The same could be said about the minimum wage going up 33% in the last 5 years....

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