Uber Eats, Foodora Apps drivers push for minimum wage, superannuation
UBER, Foodora and other gig-economy services will be forced to pay their drivers hundreds of dollars more every week under a union plan to push Labor into regulating a minimum wage and conditions for workers.
NSW
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UBER, Foodora and other gig-economy services will be forced to pay their drivers hundreds of dollars more every week under a union plan to push Labor into regulating a minimum wage and conditions for workers.
If successful, the move will forever change the way Uber and Foodora operate in Australia, pushing up the price of trips and deliveries and turning ad hoc workers into de facto employees.
The Daily Telegraph has confirmed the Transport Workers Union and the Australian Workers’ Union, two powerful allies of Labor leader Bill Shorten, will take the push for minimum hourly wages of $24 for drivers to the party’s national conference in July.
And Uber and Foodora — as well as other popular apps like Deliveroo — would for the first time be forced to provide superannuation and a minimum numbers of hours per shift.
The push follows a British court decision in November which ruled Uber drivers should be classed as workers with minimum-wage rights and holiday pay. TWU boss Tony Sheldon, who is in the running to become the next federal Labor president, said Uber and similar companies operated “in a similar way as the early days of industrialisation in the 1800s”.
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“The difference now is that change is coming via apps and by billionaires influential in the political system,” he said.
“It means workers ... are struggling to pay their bills and have no prospect for dignity in retirement because there is no superannuation being paid.”
Uber warned the move would smash its flexible work arrangements, which a spokesman said was the reason 94 per cent of their drivers chose to work with the company.
“There is demand for more flexible, independent forms of work and digital technologies are opening up reliable, diverse and unprecedented opportunities for income generation — often for those who need it most,” he said.
The revelation also comes a day after Mr Shorten, a former AWU national secretary, warned the wage system was broken.
Current AWU national secretary Daniel Walton said his union “backs moves to civilise (Uber) and shape it to Australian standards”.
The Health Services Union is understood to back the plan.
There are currently 60,000 Uber drivers in the country, with Rideshare Drivers United, which advocates for those workers, estimating those working a full week earn $18.75 an hour before expenses.
The TWU has successfully argued for couriers who were receiving less than $10 per delivery to be covered by the delivery award which is currently $24.21 an hour.