Minister accuses Uber of having ‘no sense of obligation’ over rider’s death

Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke has accused Uber Eats of having “no sense of obligation” over the death of a food delivery rider who was hit by a car in Sydney, in a claim denied by the gig economy giant.

Burke told an industrial relations forum on Monday he wanted to close the loophole of tech platforms avoiding responsibility over their workers. He referred to the death of Bijoy Paul, who joined a spate of delivery rider fatalities in 2020 when he died in hospital after he was hit while completing an order for Uber Eats.

Bijoy Paul, a 27-year-old Uber Eats rider from Bangladesh, was killed in a road incident in 2020.

“Bijoy Paul had been a delivery rider in the gig economy. He had died on the road, and the platform had claimed that his death had nothing to with them because he wasn’t an employee,” Burke told the annual Ron McCallum debate on Monday night.

However, the platform said Paul’s family had been compensated over his death.

Burke said in a speech given remotely that he had met friends of Paul. “The students I was meeting with were the people who had paid for his funeral. There was no sense of obligation from the platform to the people who they controlled, who had no sense over their pay and conditions,” he said.

An Uber spokesperson said: “Our hearts remain with the family of Bijoy Paul, and we have provided them with a range of support since his passing.”

Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“The safety of everyone who uses the Uber platform is fundamental and remains our number one priority,” the spokesperson said, adding the platform provided free insurance that covers accidents.

Burke also used the anecdote of a fruit picker who raided supermarket dumpsters to eat because she was being paid about $4 an hour. “These are all loopholes that need to be closed,” he said.

In August, Burke likened the effects of gig work on wages to cancer during a speech before the Transport Workers’ Union. The government has committed to reforming the gig economy by empowering the Fair Work Commission to set minimum pay and conditions for people working under “employee-like” arrangements.

He said the government’s Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill, to be introduced to parliament on Thursday, would also establish two new expert panels on the Fair Work Commission, one on pay equity and one on the care and community sector, adding they would allow largely feminised industries access to multi-employer bargaining.

Employer organisations are arguing against changes to workplace laws that raise the risk of strike action, saying it could increase unemployment.

Fair Work Commission president Justice Iain Ross who moderated the debate, described giving the industrial umpire more discretion and power as “intrinsically attractive”.

“But I think we also have to bear in mind that whenever you invest a body with a broad range of discretion, you’re going to get a range of acceptable outcomes within that scope of the discretion,” Ross said.

“So how do you balance flexibility with certainty? How do you match those sorts of things?”