Private Law Theory

INTRODUCTION
Uber drivers, the UK Supreme Court ruled in early 2021, are workers – and they are working whenever they are ‘“on duty” logged onto the Uber app in London available to accept a trip request’. Uber, a global transportation services provider founded just over a decade ago, is one of the archetypical platforms at the heart of the gig economy, where digital labour intermediaries use sophisticated platforms to provide consumer services and control large, on-demand workforces. One core element of the vast majority of platforms’ business model is the claim that workers are merely independent contractors, falling outside the scope of employment law …

Jeremias Adams-Prassl, Uber BV v Aslam: ‘[W]ork relations … cannot safely be left to contractual regulation, Industrial Law Journal, Volume 51, Issue 4, December 2022, Pages 955–966. Published: 18 January 2023.