12 ms·

Uber recognises a union for the first time

154 points by shivbhatt 5y ago

stolen_biscuit 5y ago
Cautiously optimistic but I'm always wary of unions that get the corporations blessing. We have some like that in Australia (SDA stands out as I used to be a member) and they can be incredibly toothless at times. But that being said, I would rather be in a weaker union than no union at all. Unionisation like this is always a positive for the workers and I hope it brings about positive changes for all of Ubers drivers and leads to further unionisation efforts in the ride sharing market around the globe. If you're an uber driver in the UK get active and push for the improvements you need, and if you're an uber driver around the world start organising!
- maxehmookau 5y ago
  The GMB is one of the UK's largest trade unions. If they don't have teeth, nobody does, so I'm more than cautiously optimistic. This is excellent news.
  - stolen_biscuit 5y ago
    I wasn't familiar with them, I just looked them up, thanks for letting me know. That has made me a bit more optimistic about the path forward there!
  - docdeek 5y ago
    Not OP but SDA union is - by numbers - one of the largest unions in Australia but is not well known for protecting its members (mostly retail workers).
    - somedangedname 5y ago
      I'm hopeful that the RAFFWU (https://raffwu.org.au/ https://raffwu.org.au/) can supplant the SDA in the future.
  - pydry 5y ago
    They haven't been so successful with nurses. 12% effective pay cut over a decade.
    - maxehmookau 5y ago
      For sure. I can only think the situation would be so much worse without them.
      - pydry 5y ago
        Possibly. Either way they dont seem very effective compared to the previous decade, or, say, Unite. Supporting Owen Smith (an anodyne career politician who is now a PR flack) in the Labour leadership election in what looks like a rigged vote isn't indicative of a pro worker outlook, either: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2016/10/17/who-do-you-trust-was-the-gmbs-endorsement-of-owen-smith-rigged/ https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2016/10/17/who-do-you-trust-w...
        maxehmookau 5y ago
        Unfortunately over a decade of government run by a party that are pretty hostile towards trade unions will have that effect.
  - deleted 5y ago
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- vidarh 5y ago
  Uber has only very limited control over which union gets to represent workers (not in the UK anyway), so if toothless unions ends up representing people, that is because those are the unions their workers choose.
  - pmyteh 5y ago
    Although any union is able to represent members at any workplace, it's worth noting that this does affect future claims for recognition (and so collective bargaining rights) for other unions. In particular, if an employer refuses to recognise a union they have a right to apply for 'statutory recognition' through the Central Arbitration Committee - but this can only succeed if there is no other recognised union for that bargaining unit[0]. The GMB are a large, well-established, general union. It wouldn't surprise me if Uber were much keener on having them as the sole recognised union than, say, the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain[1] - who are also organising Uber workers and are smaller, scrappier, and more militant than the GMB. [0]: https://www.gov.uk/trade-union-recognition-employers/statutory-recognition https://www.gov.uk/trade-union-recognition-employers/statuto... [1]: https://iwgb.org.uk/ https://iwgb.org.uk/
- PoignardAzur 5y ago
  In France we call those "yellow unions", as opposed to "red unions" which are more adversarial with the company. The most notable yellow union is CFDT, which is one of the largest cross-sector unions in the country. A saying I heard once was "Management could establish slavery, and CFDT would negotiate the weight of the chains".
  - Mauricebranagh 5y ago
    Are not the red unions the communist one :-) France has multiple versions of unions based on politics for those that didn't know.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    So why do yellow unions' members tolerate their toothlessness?
    - thanatos519 5y ago
      The yellow unions wear yellow vests, but the red unions wear red shirts.
      - pkaye 5y ago
        Which union would be best if you work on a starship?
    - PoignardAzur 5y ago
      Just because they have a good relationship with the management doesn't mean they're toothless. Some employees don't want to be threatening a strike every week. But yeah, people who identify with the more militant unions kind of despise the CFDT types.
    - ekianjo 5y ago
      Natural selection. Red unions make companies go bankrupt, and relocate outside of France. Btw unions are mandatory in France above 50 employees. Which is why you find an awful lot of companies with 49 employees in France.
- whitepaint 5y ago
  What if I want to work just for a few hours on a Friday night and that's it? What if I want to directly interface with Uber without anyone being above me (the union in this case)? More power is stripped from me in this case as it always happens; Union = less freedom for an individual.
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    In the uk you're not obliged to join, you still have to option to accept whatever they negotiate (still without joining) and you can just choose to keep doing whatever you were doing before. There's very little upside to uk unions but there is very little downside either, they're basically pointless...
    - whitepaint 5y ago
      > In the uk you're not obliged to join Thank god. I wish it was a standard for absolutely every job that has unions. Leave it to the individual if they choose to.
      - bildung 5y ago
        No idea where you live but it is the same in the US, since 1947.
        josephcsible 5y ago
        This is completely true in 27 states and a few localities, but in the rest of the US, it's only true due to a technicality: if you want, you can choose to not get the union's benefits but still have to pay them dues. Obviously, this isn't what people have in mind.
  - airza 5y ago
    Isn't it kinda weird that every single large company moves aggressively to crush labor unions if they are so bad for the individual worker? I keep seeing this perspective and it is baffling to me.
- deleted 5y ago
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- Mauricebranagh 5y ago
  How else do you get recognition ?
  - bwestergard 5y ago
    In the U.S., workers are entitled to choose union representation by filing a petition with the National Labor Relations Board. If the employer refuses to recognize the union on the basis of a majority showing of interest, the NLRB will schedule an election. If the majority of workers vote for the union, it is certified, and the employer is legally obligated to bargain. Virtually every democracy has some mechanism for certifying unions on the basis of majority support.
    - Mauricebranagh 5y ago
      Its the same in the UK but the company and union will work together - not sure what your point is. I have worked on a successful UK recognition campaign BTW
      - bobthepanda 5y ago
        The point is that the process the person you’re responding to is saying also applies if the company is not willing to work with the union. You did ask how else a union would organize without being blessed by corporate as this one is.
- throwkeep 5y ago
  Maybe it's always positive for poor performers since they become entrenched, but not always for workers generally, and not in the larger picture. If you don't think that's true, then why not start a company where you build in a union from the start? You can even have all workers be owners with equal voting rights. There's nothing stopping you from doing that! Or join an existing one, as they exist, even in the US. It's completely legal and you won't be opposed. Forcing your model on existing companies is where it becomes objectionable. Start your own if you think it's a better approach. If it is, it'll win out and you won't have to force it on others. They will copy it willingly and eagerly.
  - fuzzer37 5y ago
    > If it is, it'll win out and you won't have to force it on others. They will copy it willingly and eagerly. I don't really think this is a fair comparison when Uber's business model is literally to undercut the competition in a market to drive out local competitors, then raise prices once they're basically a monopoly in an area.
  - advisedwang 5y ago
    > You can even have all workers be owners with equal voting rights. There's nothing stopping you from doing that! There 100% is something stopping you from doing that: No investor will put money into a worker owned company. This means anything which requires up front investment is not really possible. Want to start a software company like this? You better be profitable on day 1 or otherwise have a whole team prepared to pay for servers out of pocket and work for free.
    - throwkeep 5y ago
      You do what most people do when they start companies. They start small, without VC investment. And with the internet, it's easier and cheaper than ever to start one.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  > Unionisation like this is always a positive for the workers Except when the unions actually actively try to destroy the company.
igammarays 5y ago
Tech startup recognizes basic modern advances that have been made in the past 3 centuries, after realizing it provides a competitive advantage due to regulatory capture (small upstarts can't afford to pay workers as workers).
- aetherane 5y ago
  Not sure Uber is a startup at this point
  - the-dude 5y ago
    That is his point.
- thiago_fm 5y ago
  They are looking to legalise their own business, after they got rid of all direct competitors. Interesting.
- kortilla 5y ago
  Unions were not an advancement. Some unions fought for important advancements last century. That distinction is important.
AlgorithmicTime 5y ago
The beginning of the end for Uber. Never recognize a union, they're like herpes, you can't get rid of them.
urschrei 5y ago
The deal explicitly states that the company doesn’t have to engage in collective bargaining about wages, so this seems like little more than PR at this stage, unless there’s a broader strategy.
- Mauricebranagh 5y ago
  Its recognition for representation its a first step
- paxys 5y ago
  That isn't the only reason to have a union.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Do you think the only purpose of a union is wages?
aerodog 5y ago
Somehow my mind first jumped to the idea that two people taking an Uber together fell in love and married before the end of the ride.
deleted 5y ago
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londons_explore 5y ago
This is Uber playing off one union against another... The GMB (originally General, Municipal and Boilermakers) Union vs the App Drivers and Couriers union (who is fighting Uber in court). This is effectively Uber helping the GMB union expand their turf, killing the App drivers and Couriers union. I assume in return, the GMB union has promised to be toothless.
- pydry 5y ago
  GMB's raison d'etre is to be as milquetoast as possible. It's why they threw their weight behind Owen Smith (now a PR flack for a pharmaceutical) in the Labour leadership election. It's the union I'd choose if I were Uber.
fouc 5y ago
If unions are good and necessary then let's bake unions into the DNA of every business. Why not?
- deleted 5y ago
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pachico 5y ago
Sorry, what does it mean that it's recognises it? Can a union be not recognised by a company?
- wpietri 5y ago
  Yes. Unions bargain on behalf of a group of workers. An employer can refuse to talk to the union and instead try to continue negotiating with individual workers. Whether that's legal depends on the jurisdiction, of course.
  - pachico 5y ago
    Thanks, you replied to what I was indeed implying. What I'm wondering is how a legally registered union can be ignored at all, especially when a certain amount of workers claim to be represented by it.
    - wpietri 5y ago
      I think it depends a ton on the jurisdiction. But the way they can ignore it is just by ignoring it. E.g., by continuing to negotiate with individual workers and firing the ones who don't comply. That might be illegal, but whether and when it will be enforced are different questions.
      - pachico 5y ago
        Right, but that can happen with well established and recognized unions as well, I guess. Thanks. I was wondering if there was something I didn't know like "some kind of negotiation cannot happen with this union because of some legal requirement". Cheers, mate
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- deleted 5y ago
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CryptoPunk 5y ago
The BBC's staff are fully unionized, and derive extra-contractual benefits at the expense of their employers' contract liberty. Therefore, they have a financial conflict of interest in how they cover this story.
- advisedwang 5y ago
  They have no conflict of interest. Neither Uber nor GMB pay BBC staff in any way. The only degree to which they benefit is from whether this leads to an overall societal trend that might benefit them. Its unreasonable to expect journalists not to comment on any element of the public sphere that impacts them in some way. E.g. you might as well say BBC staff shouldn't cover the NHS because they get NHS care.
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    The laws that grant them their extra-contractual benefits depend on wide public support for the left-wing political narrative.
- burkaman 5y ago
  This is like saying the BBC should not cover any national government in the world, since they receive financial benefits from their own government.
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    This is a highly concentrated benefit, in that the group to which they belongs constitutes a very small percentage of the population, and benefits disproportionately from laws that empower unions at the expense of their employers' contract liberty.
ivvve 5y ago
Whilst this is good on paper, this is actually pretty bad, and GMB should be treated with more scrutiny. This seems to be working better for the employer and the union than the workers. The fact is that Uber workers who are members of the App Drivers and Couriers Union, one of the smaller UK unions, got recognition in the UK Supreme court that drivers are employees. They brought an effective legal challenge against Uber that made the firm recognise contractors (in name only) as employees. This was a landmark win that made a real difference in the worker's lives. Clearly Uber was under threat, since this effective challenge by a smaller union built a lot of momentum for a muscular recognition deal. So they jumped before they were pushed, and recognised GMB, since it was the best deal for them as the employer. ADCU's statement: https://www.adcu.org.uk/news-posts/statement-on-uber-response https://www.adcu.org.uk/news-posts/statement-on-uber-respons... If you read the FT report, GMB agreed with Uber that there will be no right for the workers to negotiate over pay or minimum wage, which is one of the key reasons (and benefits) of having a recognised union in the workplace. True, the conditions of precarious workers are terrible, but also the pay and minimum wage is abysmal, and the employers in these situations are basically only operating the way they do because of the terrible wages they pay their workers. Uber drivers have to pay for their car and fuel out of their own pocket, so in this case the employer has every interest to not negotiate wages, since they pay little to no operating costs. (Snippet quoted: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2WG95hXoAIl12J.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2WG95hXoAIl12J.jpg) The Uber workers are now in a pickle. Due to UK trade union laws, if they wanted to switch unions to a better more militant one, they would have to wait til the recognition agreement's been in place 3 years, and then wait 3+ years until they can apply for recognition with another union, which is a condition baked in to all recognition deals in the UK. This kind of inertia is the death of any organised labour movement amongst workers. As is clear, this is what the trade union act of 92 was supposed to do -- make it impossible for workers to quickly build momentum when advocating for better conditions for themselves. So in signing a bad deal for a bit of press coverage, GMB are hanging Uber workers out to dry before they've begun, potentially for 6 years if the workers dislike the deal. Precarious workers aren't served by a yellow union rearranging deckchairs with the employer, they deserve to It's potentially a worse situation than doing nothing at all, or waiting for better terms from the employer. Workers deserve a militant, fighting union. In fact, in "big three" GMB are far less militant than even their counterparts, Unite and Unison. In 2019, Unite and Unison both balloted 245 and 234 times respectively, while GMB only managed a bit more than half that (125). Now, GMB have half the members (roughly) of those two, 600k compared to the 1.2m and 1.3m of the other two. But then you have the case of smaller, more militant unions, like the RMT, who did 126 ballots in the same year, with only 80k members! Data: https://airtable.com/shrEgY32g6wTezsmV/tbl92F0cWh74D8al3 https://airtable.com/shrEgY32g6wTezsmV/tbl92F0cWh74D8al3 Proportionally it's not about size of the union. GMB is, for my money, deserving of a spot in the "big three". And indeed is of a size where it should be holding more ballots and sticking up for it's members more. Even if Unite or Unison had signed this deal, they wouldn't have signed away one of their workers key demands: the right to be paid a living wage. GMB should be congratulated for it's recent work on "fire and rehire" campaign at British gas, but in this cynical expansion into new industries, it's proving itself woefully inadequate to represent workers in the 21st century, and could turn into another "yellow" union which exists only to serve it's own bureaucrats and robber baron patrons.
wpdev_63 5y ago
Uber's price directly correlates with the amount of business it does. It has doesn't have a monopoly on transportation and if the union pump up the prices then there will be less jobs. It's not like other union shops where they can more or less force a monopoly. Uber was never suppose to be a full time job and by unionizing/legitimizing it, it's going to decrease ridership.
CryptoPunk 5y ago
People who work gig economy jobs are often the most marginalized in the employment market. The effect of restricting the gig economy is to reduce the employment options of the most marginalized. Case in point: Vox writers, who eventually unionized, spent years publishing articles arguing for laws limiting the gig economy, like this one: "The gig economy has grown big, fast — and that’s a problem for workers" [1] Three years after the above article was published, its agenda succeeded, and a new anti-gig-economy law, that was heavily by major unions, was passed in California. That law in turn forced Vox to let go of hundreds of gig economy freelancers, thus reducing competition to the full-time journalists who used their media platform to lobby for the law: "Vox Media to cut hundreds of freelance jobs ahead of changes in California gig economy laws" [2] The media being fully unionized means that it is extremely biased in its coverage of these kinds of stories. [1] https://www.vox.com/2016/10/26/13349498/gig-economy-profits-workers-desperate-services-labor https://www.vox.com/2016/10/26/13349498/gig-economy-profits-... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/vox-media-to-cut-hundreds-of-freelance-jobs-ahead-of-californias-ab5.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/vox-media-to-cut-hundreds-of...

154 points by shivbhatt 5y ago

Cautiously optimistic but I'm always wary of unions that get the corporations blessing. We have some like that in Australia (SDA stands out as I used to be a member) and they can be incredibly toothless at times. But that being said, I would rather be in a weaker union than no union at all. Unionisation like this is always a positive for the workers and I hope it brings about positive changes for all of Ubers drivers and leads to further unionisation efforts in the ride sharing market around the globe. If you're an uber driver in the UK get active and push for the improvements you need, and if you're an uber driver around the world start organising!

maxehmookau 5y ago
The GMB is one of the UK's largest trade unions. If they don't have teeth, nobody does, so I'm more than cautiously optimistic. This is excellent news.
- stolen_biscuit 5y ago
  I wasn't familiar with them, I just looked them up, thanks for letting me know. That has made me a bit more optimistic about the path forward there!
- docdeek 5y ago
  Not OP but SDA union is - by numbers - one of the largest unions in Australia but is not well known for protecting its members (mostly retail workers).
  - somedangedname 5y ago
    I'm hopeful that the RAFFWU (https://raffwu.org.au/ https://raffwu.org.au/) can supplant the SDA in the future.
- pydry 5y ago
  They haven't been so successful with nurses. 12% effective pay cut over a decade.
  - maxehmookau 5y ago
    For sure. I can only think the situation would be so much worse without them.
    - pydry 5y ago
      Possibly. Either way they dont seem very effective compared to the previous decade, or, say, Unite. Supporting Owen Smith (an anodyne career politician who is now a PR flack) in the Labour leadership election in what looks like a rigged vote isn't indicative of a pro worker outlook, either: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2016/10/17/who-do-you-trust-was-the-gmbs-endorsement-of-owen-smith-rigged/ https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2016/10/17/who-do-you-trust-w...
      - maxehmookau 5y ago
        Unfortunately over a decade of government run by a party that are pretty hostile towards trade unions will have that effect.
- deleted 5y ago
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vidarh 5y ago
Uber has only very limited control over which union gets to represent workers (not in the UK anyway), so if toothless unions ends up representing people, that is because those are the unions their workers choose.
- pmyteh 5y ago
  Although any union is able to represent members at any workplace, it's worth noting that this does affect future claims for recognition (and so collective bargaining rights) for other unions. In particular, if an employer refuses to recognise a union they have a right to apply for 'statutory recognition' through the Central Arbitration Committee - but this can only succeed if there is no other recognised union for that bargaining unit[0]. The GMB are a large, well-established, general union. It wouldn't surprise me if Uber were much keener on having them as the sole recognised union than, say, the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain[1] - who are also organising Uber workers and are smaller, scrappier, and more militant than the GMB. [0]: https://www.gov.uk/trade-union-recognition-employers/statutory-recognition https://www.gov.uk/trade-union-recognition-employers/statuto... [1]: https://iwgb.org.uk/ https://iwgb.org.uk/
PoignardAzur 5y ago
In France we call those "yellow unions", as opposed to "red unions" which are more adversarial with the company. The most notable yellow union is CFDT, which is one of the largest cross-sector unions in the country. A saying I heard once was "Management could establish slavery, and CFDT would negotiate the weight of the chains".
- Mauricebranagh 5y ago
  Are not the red unions the communist one :-) France has multiple versions of unions based on politics for those that didn't know.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  So why do yellow unions' members tolerate their toothlessness?
  - thanatos519 5y ago
    The yellow unions wear yellow vests, but the red unions wear red shirts.
    - pkaye 5y ago
      Which union would be best if you work on a starship?
  - PoignardAzur 5y ago
    Just because they have a good relationship with the management doesn't mean they're toothless. Some employees don't want to be threatening a strike every week. But yeah, people who identify with the more militant unions kind of despise the CFDT types.
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    Natural selection. Red unions make companies go bankrupt, and relocate outside of France. Btw unions are mandatory in France above 50 employees. Which is why you find an awful lot of companies with 49 employees in France.
whitepaint 5y ago
What if I want to work just for a few hours on a Friday night and that's it? What if I want to directly interface with Uber without anyone being above me (the union in this case)? More power is stripped from me in this case as it always happens; Union = less freedom for an individual.
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  In the uk you're not obliged to join, you still have to option to accept whatever they negotiate (still without joining) and you can just choose to keep doing whatever you were doing before. There's very little upside to uk unions but there is very little downside either, they're basically pointless...
  - whitepaint 5y ago
    > In the uk you're not obliged to join Thank god. I wish it was a standard for absolutely every job that has unions. Leave it to the individual if they choose to.
    - bildung 5y ago
      No idea where you live but it is the same in the US, since 1947.
      - josephcsible 5y ago
        This is completely true in 27 states and a few localities, but in the rest of the US, it's only true due to a technicality: if you want, you can choose to not get the union's benefits but still have to pay them dues. Obviously, this isn't what people have in mind.
- airza 5y ago
  Isn't it kinda weird that every single large company moves aggressively to crush labor unions if they are so bad for the individual worker? I keep seeing this perspective and it is baffling to me.
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Mauricebranagh 5y ago
How else do you get recognition ?
- bwestergard 5y ago
  In the U.S., workers are entitled to choose union representation by filing a petition with the National Labor Relations Board. If the employer refuses to recognize the union on the basis of a majority showing of interest, the NLRB will schedule an election. If the majority of workers vote for the union, it is certified, and the employer is legally obligated to bargain. Virtually every democracy has some mechanism for certifying unions on the basis of majority support.
  - Mauricebranagh 5y ago
    Its the same in the UK but the company and union will work together - not sure what your point is. I have worked on a successful UK recognition campaign BTW
    - bobthepanda 5y ago
      The point is that the process the person you’re responding to is saying also applies if the company is not willing to work with the union. You did ask how else a union would organize without being blessed by corporate as this one is.
throwkeep 5y ago
Maybe it's always positive for poor performers since they become entrenched, but not always for workers generally, and not in the larger picture. If you don't think that's true, then why not start a company where you build in a union from the start? You can even have all workers be owners with equal voting rights. There's nothing stopping you from doing that! Or join an existing one, as they exist, even in the US. It's completely legal and you won't be opposed. Forcing your model on existing companies is where it becomes objectionable. Start your own if you think it's a better approach. If it is, it'll win out and you won't have to force it on others. They will copy it willingly and eagerly.
- fuzzer37 5y ago
  > If it is, it'll win out and you won't have to force it on others. They will copy it willingly and eagerly. I don't really think this is a fair comparison when Uber's business model is literally to undercut the competition in a market to drive out local competitors, then raise prices once they're basically a monopoly in an area.
- advisedwang 5y ago
  > You can even have all workers be owners with equal voting rights. There's nothing stopping you from doing that! There 100% is something stopping you from doing that: No investor will put money into a worker owned company. This means anything which requires up front investment is not really possible. Want to start a software company like this? You better be profitable on day 1 or otherwise have a whole team prepared to pay for servers out of pocket and work for free.
  - throwkeep 5y ago
    You do what most people do when they start companies. They start small, without VC investment. And with the internet, it's easier and cheaper than ever to start one.
ekianjo 5y ago
> Unionisation like this is always a positive for the workers Except when the unions actually actively try to destroy the company.

igammarays 5y ago

Tech startup recognizes basic modern advances that have been made in the past 3 centuries, after realizing it provides a competitive advantage due to regulatory capture (small upstarts can't afford to pay workers as workers).

aetherane 5y ago
Not sure Uber is a startup at this point
- the-dude 5y ago
  That is his point.
thiago_fm 5y ago
They are looking to legalise their own business, after they got rid of all direct competitors. Interesting.
kortilla 5y ago
Unions were not an advancement. Some unions fought for important advancements last century. That distinction is important.

AlgorithmicTime 5y ago

The beginning of the end for Uber. Never recognize a union, they're like herpes, you can't get rid of them.

urschrei 5y ago

The deal explicitly states that the company doesn’t have to engage in collective bargaining about wages, so this seems like little more than PR at this stage, unless there’s a broader strategy.

Mauricebranagh 5y ago
Its recognition for representation its a first step
paxys 5y ago
That isn't the only reason to have a union.
chrisseaton 5y ago
Do you think the only purpose of a union is wages?

aerodog 5y ago

Somehow my mind first jumped to the idea that two people taking an Uber together fell in love and married before the end of the ride.

deleted 5y ago

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londons_explore 5y ago

This is Uber playing off one union against another... The GMB (originally General, Municipal and Boilermakers) Union vs the App Drivers and Couriers union (who is fighting Uber in court). This is effectively Uber helping the GMB union expand their turf, killing the App drivers and Couriers union. I assume in return, the GMB union has promised to be toothless.

pydry 5y ago
GMB's raison d'etre is to be as milquetoast as possible. It's why they threw their weight behind Owen Smith (now a PR flack for a pharmaceutical) in the Labour leadership election. It's the union I'd choose if I were Uber.

fouc 5y ago

If unions are good and necessary then let's bake unions into the DNA of every business. Why not?

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pachico 5y ago

Sorry, what does it mean that it's recognises it? Can a union be not recognised by a company?

wpietri 5y ago
Yes. Unions bargain on behalf of a group of workers. An employer can refuse to talk to the union and instead try to continue negotiating with individual workers. Whether that's legal depends on the jurisdiction, of course.
- pachico 5y ago
  Thanks, you replied to what I was indeed implying. What I'm wondering is how a legally registered union can be ignored at all, especially when a certain amount of workers claim to be represented by it.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    I think it depends a ton on the jurisdiction. But the way they can ignore it is just by ignoring it. E.g., by continuing to negotiate with individual workers and firing the ones who don't comply. That might be illegal, but whether and when it will be enforced are different questions.
    - pachico 5y ago
      Right, but that can happen with well established and recognized unions as well, I guess. Thanks. I was wondering if there was something I didn't know like "some kind of negotiation cannot happen with this union because of some legal requirement". Cheers, mate

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CryptoPunk 5y ago

The BBC's staff are fully unionized, and derive extra-contractual benefits at the expense of their employers' contract liberty. Therefore, they have a financial conflict of interest in how they cover this story.

advisedwang 5y ago
They have no conflict of interest. Neither Uber nor GMB pay BBC staff in any way. The only degree to which they benefit is from whether this leads to an overall societal trend that might benefit them. Its unreasonable to expect journalists not to comment on any element of the public sphere that impacts them in some way. E.g. you might as well say BBC staff shouldn't cover the NHS because they get NHS care.
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  The laws that grant them their extra-contractual benefits depend on wide public support for the left-wing political narrative.
burkaman 5y ago
This is like saying the BBC should not cover any national government in the world, since they receive financial benefits from their own government.
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  This is a highly concentrated benefit, in that the group to which they belongs constitutes a very small percentage of the population, and benefits disproportionately from laws that empower unions at the expense of their employers' contract liberty.

ivvve 5y ago

Whilst this is good on paper, this is actually pretty bad, and GMB should be treated with more scrutiny. This seems to be working better for the employer and the union than the workers. The fact is that Uber workers who are members of the App Drivers and Couriers Union, one of the smaller UK unions, got recognition in the UK Supreme court that drivers are employees. They brought an effective legal challenge against Uber that made the firm recognise contractors (in name only) as employees. This was a landmark win that made a real difference in the worker's lives. Clearly Uber was under threat, since this effective challenge by a smaller union built a lot of momentum for a muscular recognition deal. So they jumped before they were pushed, and recognised GMB, since it was the best deal for them as the employer. ADCU's statement: https://www.adcu.org.uk/news-posts/statement-on-uber-response https://www.adcu.org.uk/news-posts/statement-on-uber-respons... If you read the FT report, GMB agreed with Uber that there will be no right for the workers to negotiate over pay or minimum wage, which is one of the key reasons (and benefits) of having a recognised union in the workplace. True, the conditions of precarious workers are terrible, but also the pay and minimum wage is abysmal, and the employers in these situations are basically only operating the way they do because of the terrible wages they pay their workers. Uber drivers have to pay for their car and fuel out of their own pocket, so in this case the employer has every interest to not negotiate wages, since they pay little to no operating costs. (Snippet quoted: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2WG95hXoAIl12J.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2WG95hXoAIl12J.jpg) The Uber workers are now in a pickle. Due to UK trade union laws, if they wanted to switch unions to a better more militant one, they would have to wait til the recognition agreement's been in place 3 years, and then wait 3+ years until they can apply for recognition with another union, which is a condition baked in to all recognition deals in the UK. This kind of inertia is the death of any organised labour movement amongst workers. As is clear, this is what the trade union act of 92 was supposed to do -- make it impossible for workers to quickly build momentum when advocating for better conditions for themselves. So in signing a bad deal for a bit of press coverage, GMB are hanging Uber workers out to dry before they've begun, potentially for 6 years if the workers dislike the deal. Precarious workers aren't served by a yellow union rearranging deckchairs with the employer, they deserve to It's potentially a worse situation than doing nothing at all, or waiting for better terms from the employer. Workers deserve a militant, fighting union. In fact, in "big three" GMB are far less militant than even their counterparts, Unite and Unison. In 2019, Unite and Unison both balloted 245 and 234 times respectively, while GMB only managed a bit more than half that (125). Now, GMB have half the members (roughly) of those two, 600k compared to the 1.2m and 1.3m of the other two. But then you have the case of smaller, more militant unions, like the RMT, who did 126 ballots in the same year, with only 80k members! Data: https://airtable.com/shrEgY32g6wTezsmV/tbl92F0cWh74D8al3 https://airtable.com/shrEgY32g6wTezsmV/tbl92F0cWh74D8al3 Proportionally it's not about size of the union. GMB is, for my money, deserving of a spot in the "big three". And indeed is of a size where it should be holding more ballots and sticking up for it's members more. Even if Unite or Unison had signed this deal, they wouldn't have signed away one of their workers key demands: the right to be paid a living wage. GMB should be congratulated for it's recent work on "fire and rehire" campaign at British gas, but in this cynical expansion into new industries, it's proving itself woefully inadequate to represent workers in the 21st century, and could turn into another "yellow" union which exists only to serve it's own bureaucrats and robber baron patrons.

wpdev_63 5y ago

Uber's price directly correlates with the amount of business it does. It has doesn't have a monopoly on transportation and if the union pump up the prices then there will be less jobs. It's not like other union shops where they can more or less force a monopoly. Uber was never suppose to be a full time job and by unionizing/legitimizing it, it's going to decrease ridership.

CryptoPunk 5y ago

People who work gig economy jobs are often the most marginalized in the employment market. The effect of restricting the gig economy is to reduce the employment options of the most marginalized. Case in point: Vox writers, who eventually unionized, spent years publishing articles arguing for laws limiting the gig economy, like this one: "The gig economy has grown big, fast — and that’s a problem for workers" [1] Three years after the above article was published, its agenda succeeded, and a new anti-gig-economy law, that was heavily by major unions, was passed in California. That law in turn forced Vox to let go of hundreds of gig economy freelancers, thus reducing competition to the full-time journalists who used their media platform to lobby for the law: "Vox Media to cut hundreds of freelance jobs ahead of changes in California gig economy laws" [2] The media being fully unionized means that it is extremely biased in its coverage of these kinds of stories. [1] https://www.vox.com/2016/10/26/13349498/gig-economy-profits-workers-desperate-services-labor https://www.vox.com/2016/10/26/13349498/gig-economy-profits-... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/vox-media-to-cut-hundreds-of-freelance-jobs-ahead-of-californias-ab5.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/vox-media-to-cut-hundreds-of...