THE TORY plan to reduce Britain to a slave labour, hire-and-fire, zero-hours economy is now being challenged powerfully by groups of young workers.
With the introduction of Uber, the government saw a tremendous potential to undo hundreds of years of struggle by the working class, through their trade unions, to win holiday pay, sick pay, pensions, the 40-hour working week, a minimum wage and job security.
By defining Uber workers as ‘self-employed’ or ‘independent contractors’ they got around having to recognise any rights at all. Uber drivers were to be become the modern equivalent of the servant-master relationship of feudal times, where the master would ring the bell and the servant would scurry to do his or her bidding, with the only difference being that in the modern version the bell was replaced by a mobile phone.
This is the ‘vision’ of what was termed the ‘gig economy’ where a permanent job with trade union terms and conditions would become a thing of the past replaced by ‘precarious employment’, at the beck and call of the boss.
However, last week the GMB union won ‘a monumental victory’ after a London employment tribunal ruled against Uber and in favour of the workforce. They are no longer to be considered ‘self employed’ but will now be considered as workers directly employed by Uber.
This means they are now entitled to holiday pay, sick pay and the National Minimum Wage. Deliveroo workers, also predominantly youth, using bikes and mopeds to deliver food, have now been spurred forward to get unionised and fight for a similar victory.
On Tuesday night, over 100 Deliveroo workers and supporters met in Camden, north west London, a meeting called by the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain. The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) general secretary Jason Moyer-Lee outlined the situation facing Deliveroo couriers as follows: ‘Currently Deliveroo riders are classed as “independent contractors” which means they have no employment rights. This is the same category that the courier companies use and that Uber has been using. We want to get them recognised in law as being “workers”, just like the Uber case. This means they would obtain paid holiday, minimum wage, trade union rights, and more. Collective bargaining laws in the UK apply to both “workers” and “employees”. They do not apply to “independent contractors”.’
James Farrar with fellow Uber driver Yassen Aslam won an employment tribunal to be recognised as workers. James told the meeting: ‘GMB did represent us. We also formed a body ourselves, Uber Drivers Union. We’ve grown to the biggest driver representative body in the UK. The story is the same everywhere – private hire and minicab drivers are treated like shit.’
We now find out, after a BBC investigation, that the Amazon delivery drivers are also working in appalling conditions. Drivers for agencies contracted by the internet giant told an undercover reporter they were expected to deliver up to 200 parcels a day, working more than 11 hours a day, breaking the legal limit, while receiving a fixed rate of £110 per route, or set of deliveries.
This means that they were being paid well under the minimum wage per hour. Drivers told the undercover investigator that they had to ‘defecate in bags’ and ‘urinate in bottles’ because there was no time for toilet breaks. Amazon Logistics requires agency drivers to be self-employed, and therefore not entitled to the minimum wage or employment rights like sick pay or holiday pay.
It has now become crystal clear what has to be done. The Trade Union Congress (TUC) must put itself firmly at the head of this fight, welcome new unions like the Deliveroo drivers IWGB and the Uber Drivers Union and immediately affiliate them to the TUC. The TUC must then call a general strike demanding that all ‘independent contractors’ are recognised as workers. This will mean bringing down the Tories and bringing in a workers government to carry out socialist policies.
This is what must be done to stop and defeat the employers’ offensive to destroy trade unionism and return the working class to being a mass of powerless individuals.
