Uber agrees to grant all UK drivers holiday pay and pensions

Uber driver Yaseen Aslam holds a placard outside the Supreme Court in London on Feb 19 after justices ruled against Uber and concluded that its drivers should be classed as workers, not independent third-party contractors

Credit: PA

Jamie Heywood, Uber’s regional general manager for Northern and Eastern Europe, said offering all UK workers these new rights, “provides a clearer path forward as to a model that gives drivers the rights of worker status – while continuing to let them work flexibly, in the same way they have been since Uber’s launch in the UK in 2012”.

Whilst the move sees Uber adopt most of the worker rights which were discussed during the Supreme Court trial, it decided against giving all workers the minimum wage from as soon as they log onto the app.

During the Supreme Court case, Uber had argued that working time should only be calculated as journey time, an argument rejected by the court  which said drivers were also working when they had their app switched on and were looking for journey requests.

The new measures dictate that working time will be measured by when drivers accept requests – understood to be a move to escape some drivers signing up to multiple taxi apps and only working partly for each service but still receiving full minimum wage pay each day.

London has the highest proportion of its workforce in the gig economy

Mr Heywood said: “This is an important day for drivers in the UK. Uber drivers will receive an earnings guarantee, holiday pay and a pension, and will retain the flexibility they currently value. 

“Uber is just one part of a larger private-hire industry, so we hope that all other operators will join us in improving the quality of work for these important workers who are an essential part of our everyday lives.”

Just weeks earlier, Uber boss Dara Khosrowshahi had said the company’s 3.9m drivers across the world “overwhelmingly” valued flexibility as their number one priority.