OT:Uber

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Of course. Either it is the law or not. Rather like BREXIT. ;-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

No minimum wage then. But yes, to your question. And expecting a taxi ride where the driver makes less than the minimum wage is ridiculous.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The vast majority don't have a 'car habit' They buy used Prius specifically for the job.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It was indeed, over the years. And great fun - especially in the early days. Paid the mortgage and allowed me to take on other less well paid stuff inbetween.

Think you need to get a better telly. I only used radio mics as a very very last resort. Unlike these days.

[Plowcunt fucker]

Even sillier than you usually manage. Fuck all of them are Prius.

[Brian Gaff]

I am a little worried about safeguards on passengers on these part time taxi ideas. I agree they are providing a service, but can we be sure they have hire and reward/public liability insurance, or have no criminal record, or can communicate in English or are not letting their brothers do their driving for them when convenient?

There are rules in London which are coming in to suggest that private hire drivers can only work for one company, and this, in my experience would upset a lot of the minicab drivers who moonlight with this part time company when they are not able to work for the company they are with for whatever reason.

As for the dept of work and pension,back when I was of working age, they ran courses about self employment which paid you extra benefit and I am grateful to them for doing that, as it meant within a fairly short time I could earn more than the benefit gave me.

I'm afraid of late they do seem to be of the opinion that all people are scivers or diddling the revenue unless proved otherwise. To me that has always proved to not be the case, of course there were those who played the system but then no amount of looking is going to find the clever ones. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

No which is why I think its got more to do with vested interests in the cabbing fraternity than drivers, but all the same I'd still be a bit leary of using them as a disabled person even though they are cheap and fast. Brian

[spuorgelgoog]

In London mini-cab drivers and vehicles all have to be registered with Tran sport for London and go through the vetting and roadworthiness tests simila r to (but not identical to) taxis. There's also a topographical test for mi ni-cab drivers but it's a lot less than the taxi-driver's Knowledge.

In theory there's no difference between phoning a licenced mini-cab office and tapping up an Uber - but on Uber drivers are competing for the work on price and the cheapest one will be at the top of the list.

Owain

[tim...]

When they are driving, they do

The problem is that these people (the ones who complained to the courts) have chosen to make themselves available for work during the slack time of the day (presumably because they are working for someone else during the busy part of the day) and complaining that they aren't getting paid for those hours because there is no-one wants a ride at those times.

A requirement for them to be paid NMW during "waiting" periods won't result in them actually getting any money for these periods, it will just result in Uber not allowing them to log on for work at those times when supply exceeds demand. So instead of making themselves available for 8 hours, during which they get perhaps 3 hours work, they will get zero hours work

tim

[tim...]

The guy's calculation that he had earned less than NMW was *after* he had deducted his expenses.

Before expenses he earnt 12.62 per hour (which for a full year amounts to

25K)

tim

[tim...]

Uber strongly discourage the collection of tips

no idea how it works in practice, but it was one of things that drivers complained about

tim

[John Rumm]

On of the great difficulties with employment and tax legislation in this country is that they use a similar but slightly different set of guidelines to sort out employment status. The guidelines are not written into law in many cases and are based on legal precedent handed down over the years. So it can take lots of interpretation and argument as to what applies. The result is that its possible to end up effectively self employed for the purposes of employment protection, and some kind of PAYE for tax - the worst of both worlds if you are npt careful.

[John Rumm]

You may find that the union is notionally working "for" the existing traditional taxi drivers rather than for the UBER ones as such - perhaps with some encouragement from the black cab industry to try and "level" the market (i.e. reduce the effect of UBER's disruptive technology on "the way its always been done").

[tim...]

I thought the reverse.

It's the people doing it for a living who are going to lose out here, as they will be the ones logging on at the shitty parts of the day to get 100% loading.

It's the pin money people who log on at whatever time they are available and then only get 40% loading because that is the custom that there is, who are complaining that they are "working" 8 hours but only getting paid for 3 of them.

But they aren't working 8 hours, they are working 3.

Look closely at the item that Theo posted (that you have already replied to)

The guy claimed to be working 7 hour days (most days that he worked), but in his summary he was actually only driving for 2-4 of them.

That is the problem with cabbing. There isn't a constant supply of rides and you don't get paid for sitting around waiting for them. Expecting to do so just makes the model unworkable (unless you increase fares considerably, and they are high enough as it is - 5.52 for 1.6 miles. WTF, can't you walk that? - Yes I know that some can't)

tim

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'd be very surprised if the average black cab driver was in a union. ;-)

[Robin]

Probably true of the "average" but the GMB (who supported the Uber drivers' case) has had "Professional Driver Members" for quite some time which includes self-employed members. They pursued them for the fairly obvious reason that they needs members and the vast majority of taxi and minicab drivers are self-employed.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'm sure there will be some. But it's a lot more difficult to show the benefits of a union where the majority are self employed.

[Handsome Jack]

Brian Gaff posted

No. But as long as their customers are happy with that, there is no problem. Personally I don't care if my taxi driver has a criminal record. I've always assumed they all have one anyway.

And as I have no idea who the Uber driver is, I wouldn't have any objection to him being impersonated by his brother.

As for not speaking English, that's a bonus. No more moronic conversations about sending the Pakis home.

Really?

It's different now. They'll invite you on a course, and if you accept they'll stop your benefits because you aren't available for work.

[tim...]

that depends whether they really see themselves as SE

Taxi drivers - probably delivery drivers - probably not

tim

[Capitol]

Uber may be a case of unintended consequences. If an EU migrant works for Uber, he obviously is employed in the UK and has a right to remain?