...GMB PERSPECTIVE...
employees with that liability being taken on by those individual cab companies, although that is dependent on each cab companies operating model as previously explained.
drivers. Where this system is used the driver is then paid at the end of the week/month minus the commission if applicable. Set fares may also be used instead of using the soft meter.
I consider that how the Uber Employment case will now affect the local cab companies is based on the working model of each company. If it is an association or co-operative then nothing changes. If it is a private company but run in a similar way of an association or co-operative then nothing changes. But if it is the same as the Uber model then there is a high chance that drivers on those companies may no longer be classed as self-employed and will now be employees of the company.
UBER CONTINGENCY PLAN
However, something that has not been mentioned in the media but certainly within the cab trade is that Uber had already made contingency plans to change its business model pre-empting the employment court ruling going against them.
A few months ago it bought a dispatch company called Autocab which is a cab dispatch system that many individual cab companies use up and down the country; there are several similar systems used such as iCabbi, Cordic and others.
By buying Autocab and remodelling as an Aggregator it can then use that network of individual cab companies that use Autocab to move away from dispatching work directly and instead pass Uber work through these companies. By doing this it then relinquishes all responsibility of having drivers as
MARCH 2021
In essence if you have a cab company called Joe’s Cabs which uses the Autocab system then with your own company customer app there will be a choice to book an Uber car or a car from Joe’s Cabs. This is how it was explained to those individual cab companies at the time although by now there maybe changes to the initial concept of the intended set-up. I understand that such cab companies that use the Autocab dispatch system are not obliged to be tied in with Uber but I expect that the established dominance of Uber will be the deciding factor.
My own personal opinion on what will actually happen is that Uber will eventually end up selling back the same work that Joe’s Cabs originally had built up.
However, since then, the Competition and Markets Authority has launched a formal probe into the deal and would consider its “possible effect on competition, including in the supply of booking and dispatch software to taxi companies in the UK, and any potential impact upon consumers” and has delayed the Uber/Autocab project.
There is also the question of the VAT liability of backdated VAT hanging over Uber and now it is classed as an employer, then implications of VAT could be huge.
Unfortunately the knock-on effect of Uber trying to dominate the world in the taxi/private higher sector whilst trying to revolutionise the so called ‘Gig Economy’ may be to the cost of the viability of some local cab companies that do not have the resources to employ drivers.
Uber the disrupting ‘Technology Company’ that landed in the UK in 2012 has left what only can be described as a disrupting skid-mark in the taxi and private hire trade.
Andy Peters Secretary GMB Brighton & Hove Taxi Section
andy.peters@
gmbtaxis.org.uk
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