A union representing “gig economy” workers is calling on Uber customers to join a 24-hour strike in response to the Uber files, a series of revelations about the ride-hailing app published by the Guardian and its media partners.
The App Drivers and Couriers Union (ADCU) called on Uber users to avoid using the service for a day on Wednesday and instead join a demonstration at the company’s London headquarters.
The ADCU is demanding increased pay and conditions for its drivers and measures to address the issues raised in Uber’s filings.
A trove of more than 124,000 documents leaked to the Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and international media partners last week revealed how Uber broke the law, deceived the police and secretly lobbied governments.
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What are Uber files?
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The Uber files are a global investigation based on a set of 124,000 documents leaked to the Guardian by Mark McGann, Uber’s former chief lobbyist in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The data consists of emails, iMessages and WhatsApp exchanges between the Silicon Valley giant’s top executives, as well as memos, presentations, notebooks, briefing documents and invoices.
The leaked records cover 40 countries and cover the period from 2013 to 2017, the period when Uber was aggressively expanding around the world. They reveal how the company broke the law, defrauded police and regulators, used violence against drivers and secretly lobbied governments around the world.
To facilitate a global public interest investigation, the Guardian shared the data with 180 journalists in 29 countries through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The investigation was managed and led by the Guardian with the ICIJ.
In a statement, Uber said: “We have not and will not make excuses for past behavior that is clearly inconsistent with our current values. Instead, we ask the public to judge us by what we have done in the past five years and what we will do in the years to come.”
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Uber said it “will not make excuses for past behavior that is clearly inconsistent with our current values. Instead, we ask the public to judge us by what we have done in the past five years and what we will do in the years to come.
The ADCU said Uber did not go far enough, questioning the company’s response to a landmark High Court ruling last year that found drivers were not self-employed contractors but workers entitled to rights such as a minimum wage and holiday pay.
The union said Uber interprets drivers’ work hours as the length of time from dispatching the taxi to dropping off a customer. Instead, the period should include waiting times, which ADCU claims represent up to 40% of the drivers’ work period.
Fares should also be increased to £2.50 per mile and 20p per minute, with Uber’s commission capped at 15%, the union said.
Uber’s files revealed how the San Francisco-based company gained access to top-level politicians around the world as it lobbied for regulatory changes to operate.
Do you have information on this story? Email investigations@theguardian.com
The ADCU said Uber still exercises significant “dishonest” lobbying in the UK, including meetings with MPs.
Most recently, the union called for the sacking of Pierre-Dimitri Gor-Coty, head of food delivery service Uber Eats, whose involvement in using “off switches” and controversial software called Greyball to fool law enforcement was revealed in Uber files.
Gore-Cotty told the Guardian he was “young and inexperienced and too often took instructions from superiors of questionable ethics”.
Uber insists it has changed for the better since Dara Khosrowshahi took over as chief executive in 2017, prompting a major overhaul of the company’s corporate culture.
James Farrar, the general secretary of the ADCU, disputed the claim, saying drivers had “no choice but to strike and take to the streets”.
An Uber spokesperson said: “The ADCU represents a small fraction of Uber’s active drivers. For more than a year now, the GMB union has served as the voice of drivers across the UK following our historic recognition agreement, which helped secure new protections for workers, including holiday pay and access to a pension scheme.
“With demand surging post-pandemic, Uber drivers are earning more than ever – in the first quarter of 2022 they earned an average of £29.72 an hour, including holiday pay, when they were actively engaged in the app.
“The combination of higher incomes, new protections such as holiday and pension pay and union recognition in the UK has seen more than 10,000 new drivers sign up to Uber in recent months.”
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