We’ve seen a number of rulings recently which have had enormous effect on those “gig” economy business models and the status of their workers. Through such cases as Uber, rulings have been put in place to confirm the genuine “worker” status and as such the employment rights that apply.
On the 24th of June, The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) brought their case to the UK Court of Appeal on the back of the original ruling in 2017 that Deliveroo individuals were in fact classed as self-employed on the grounds that they were denied collective bargaining rights and as such were not classed as workers. This meant those rights could not be able to be applied through a trade union.
As such, the recent appeal re-confirmed the ruling and as such the self-employed status has been upheld. As you can imagine, this is another vital item of law and a further benchmark in the treatment of this form of “employment” and it will be interesting to see further ramifications on other similar business models.
The ruling can be found here: