Jurisdictional Points – Worker, employee or neither – WORKING TIME REGULATIONS
The Employment Tribunal did not err in law in finding that the Claimants were limb (b) workers and that the time spent logged on other than break times was ‘working time’.
The claimants were drivers working for Addison Lee’s PHV business. Almost invariably they used a vehicle hired from Eventech Ltd, an associated company of the respondents. The vehicles were in Addison Lee livery. Each driver was given a hand held computer known as an XDA. When ready to work the driver would use the XDA to log on to the respondent’s computer system which could locate the XDA and the vehicle. Allocation of jobs was automatic. When a job was notified to the driver he had to accept it forthwith or give an acceptable reason for not doing so. If the controller deemed the reason to be unacceptable, the matter was referred to a supervisor and a sanction might follow.
Each driver had a Driver Contract with the respondent. It provided (more than once) that the driver agreed he was an independent contractor and that nothing in the agreement rendered him an employee, worker, agent or partner of the respondent.
David Richardson HHJ
[2018] UKEAT 0037 – 18 – 1411
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Uber Bv and Others v Aslam and Others CA 19-Dec-2018
Uber drivers are workers
The claimant Uber drivers sought the status of workers, allowing them to claim the associated statutory employment benefits. The company now appealed from a finding that they were workers.
Held: The appeal failed (Underhill LJ dissenting) The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment
Updated: 27 December 2021; Ref: scu.630732