Tech Won't Save Us - Beating Uber at the UK Supreme Court w/ Yaseen Aslam

Episode Date: October 19, 2021

Paris Marx is joined by Yaseen Aslam to discuss the UK Supreme Court ruling that Uber drivers are not self-employed, the long fight to reach that point, and the next steps in the push for gig workers��� rights in the UK.Yaseen Aslam is the president of the App Drivers and Couriers Union and a lead claimant in the Aslam v Uber case. Follow Yaseen on Twitter at @Yaseenaslam381 and the ADCU at @ADCUnion.🚨 T-shirts are now available!Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode:In February, the UK Supreme Court upheld a previous ruling the Uber drivers were not self-employed, but were covered by a “worker” status. The following month, Uber reclassified workers, but didn’t observe the Court’s definition of what it meant to be a worker.On September 28, Uber drivers in 8 UK cities went on strike, demanding better hourly rates and the full implementation of the Supreme Court ruling/The ADCU sued Uber in the Netherlands over automated dismissal and not providing drivers their data under the GDPR. In April, the court made Uber reinstate 5 drivers.In October, the ADCU announced it was suing Uber over its racially biased facial recognition algorithms.Find out more about the ADCU.Support the show

Our mission is to empower the workers. We want to see the workers take lead within our union. We want them to run the union, and that's how it should be. Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us. I'm your host, Paris Marks, and this week my guest is Yazin Aslam. Yazin is the president of the App Drivers and Couriers Union in the United Kingdom and helped to set up the International Alliance of App-Based Transport Workers, also known as the IAATW. Now, earlier this year, you might remember that the Supreme Court in the UK ruled that Uber drivers were not self-employed but were part of a worker status, which is kind of like a third category of worker over in the UK, that gave them many of the rights of employees.

And specifically, the Supreme Court said they should be paid for all of the time that they are logged into the app, not just while they have a passenger. Now, Yazin was one of the lead claimants in that case and had been fighting Uber for many years until it reached the Supreme Court level. And so in this conversation, we talk about how the case came to that point. We also talk about how Uber's reclassification of those drivers to workers did not respect the Supreme Court's ruling. And we talk about some of the other work that the AppDrivers and Couriers Union has been doing to advocate for Uber drivers and gig workers in the United Kingdom to bring them together and also to fight these companies, Uber in particular,

about other bad parts of their business models that are really hurting workers. So as part of the gig work series that I've been doing this month, I think this is a fantastic addition to that to get some insight on what's been going on in the UK and in particular, this really important case that is altering how the gig economy works over there. Tech Won't Save Us is part of the Harbinger Media Network, a group of left-wing podcasts that are made in Canada, and you can find out more about that at harbingermedianetwork.com.

If you like the show, make sure to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, and you can also share it on social media or with any friends or colleagues who you think would learn from it. And this episode of Tech Won't Save Us, like every episode, is free for everybody because listeners like you support

the work that goes into making the show every week. So if you feel like you learned from the show, if you like the show, you can join patrons like Leon Lee from Amsterdam and Will from Melbourne by going to patreon.com slash techwontsaveus and becoming a supporter. Thanks so much and enjoy this week's conversation. Yazin, welcome to Tech Won't Save Us. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me today. I'm really looking forward to speaking with you. You know, I've been paying attention to what the App Drivers and Couriers Union and, you know, what you yourself have been up to. You know, and it's really inspiring to see the work that you've been doing over in the UK.

So I wanted to talk to you a little bit more about it. To start, I wanted to get a bit of an overview about what the gig economy looks like in the United Kingdom, just for people who are listening who might not be as familiar. So can you give us a bit of an overview just of, you know, what are some of the companies that are operating over there, what the state of things are for workers in the gig economy in the UK, and if you have any idea of the number of people who work in the gig economy over there? First of all, just to give you have any idea of the number of people who work in the gig economy over there. First of all, just to give you a little background of myself, I'm actually from the driver industry. So I actually started working as a driver. And in London, they call it private

hire. So it's a million cab industry. So I actually started working in 2006. and Uber come into London 2012 so that's when they first come so for me it was like working from one taxi company to another taxi company which is Uber yeah so the word gig economy is something that I'd never heard of till well later on 2014. So the point is, look, you know, we talk about this gig economy. It's about sort of an economy where people are able to get more work. But the point is, it existed. The trade or the job existed before then and now. Now, in terms of numbers, it's very hard for me to say how many gig workers there are, because we also have Uber, which is the minicab.

And I'm actually ADC we represent the drivers and also the couriers such as delivery workers but there are also many other sectors within the gig economy when you look at Amazon workers you know or the fast food delivery drivers but my expertise come from the driver industry so a lot of stuff that i will be talking about would relate to the driver's industry or uber or let's say when you have a company similar to uber like in the usa you have lip we have bolt we have all are here and also dd which is a chinese company that will be launching soon in the uk yeah i think that's great context and i appreciate you giving us that background on yourself as well so we can you know, an idea of where you're coming from, you know, as you kind of approach this work and your ideas about Uber and whatnot. And so, you know, I think that the story that most people will be most familiar with naturally is the Supreme Court case that was decided recently in your favor against Uber. And so, you know, before we discuss the result of that

and kind of what came after, I'm wondering how that case started, because I know that it's been going on for quite a long time. So can you give us some details about, you know, what the case was, and how you initially launched it? Like I mentioned, I actually started working for Uber coming to London in 2012. When they first launched in London, it was mainly the top-end luxury service they provided. So around 2013, Uber launched a new service called UberX, which was sort of like economy class of private hire or Uber. So I actually registered with Uber when they first launched in 2013 so I was one of the first drivers to actually work for them on the day they launched in 2013. To start off with things are very good and just to give you a little context and like in background to it I was grossing

around 50 pounds an hour around 2013 so you could see like it was good money and that was because uber was paying you a lot of bonuses so for example if i did one job i would get 10 pound bonus where if i did 10 job i would get 100 pounds in bonus and that was on top of like i also was getting money for the fares which were a lot more high at the time. The commission was also a lot less. So my income was a lot more high at the time when I started working for Uber in 2013 and 14. But around 2014, we started seeing the real Uber. One of the things that really attracted drivers to Uber was the fact that there was no operator. So back in the days when we talk about traditional cab office, like I mentioned, I actually come into the industry in 2006.

We had a lot of exploitation and it was a human that would give you jobs. So let's say I work for a small minicab office. It was a controller that would dispatch jobs and it depends whether he likes you there's also like a issue within the minicab industry where the controller would demand bribes in a way where you have to buy them donald kebabs you have to buy them cigarettes stuff like that or if the controller did not like you or you didn't do what the controller say they'll stop giving you jobs so the whole idea of coming over to uber was you don't have no human person giving you jobs so the whole idea of coming over to Uber was you don't have no human person giving you the job so there's no such a thing as favoritism but what we realized is the minute we left the traditional cab office and started working for Uber even though we in our head

it's all about you know we're in control we are own boss. But that was just like a dream that was sold to us. But in reality, what we realized over time that we are being controlled by a technology. So for example, working for Uber, if I got rated badly, I would lose my job. You know, like all the way how the jobs were dispatched. And when we talk about the technology, so all that kind of stuff, the element of control, but we couldn't see that which is why people don't resist to it a lot earlier on until they're victim so around 2014 that's when we first set up our first association which was called London App Based Drivers Association and we had about 500 members at the time and the purpose of this association was only is only uber drivers

and we were actually trying to talk to uber regarding some of the like when they reduced their fares we had issues where drivers were getting dismissed or deactivated from the platform because of their rating or because a customer made a false complaint and they had no right to challenge it now the biggest issue to me which was quite close to heart, was the fact that a driver may get assaulted by an Uber passenger. But if the passenger then made a complaint, it was a driver that lost his job. He's the one that got assaulted and the customer would get a refund over it. So I just didn't like that sense. And if the driver then complained to the law enforcement, like the police, Uber would fail to cooperate. So the driver could get some justice or we could identify the customer that assaulted that driver.

So that was the kind of background kind of thing, like what we were having issues. So around 2015, I met James Barra, who's one of the lead claimants alongside me against this case in Uber. Now, he had a similar issue where he got assaulted and Uber refused to give the rider's information. And it took 10 weeks just to identify who the rider was. And James actually started talking to a law firm regarding what our status was. He introduced me as well to the law firm and we started looking into it that, look, we drivers do need some rights.

And one of the things the lawyers mentioned to us at the time was we potentially should be or are workers based on everything that's happening within the way we work and the control element. So just to give you a bit insight on that, in the UK, we have three status. So you have a self-employed, which means you don't have no rights. You're in control. You run your own business. You could delegate your job to someone else. So ideal scenario would be for someone like a plumber, electrician, painter. But then at the bottom of the chain, we have a status called employees. So as an employee, you have a lot more rights, like in the UK, you have

paternity, maternity, you get sick pay, you get pension, right to unfair dismissal. But what we also have in the UK, which a lot of people don't know about, is a Limby worker status, they call it. Now, what a Limby worker is, it's a middle status which sits between a self-employed and an employee. It means you're actually self-employed in a way, but you're actually running someone else's business because that company has some control over you. So therefore, you're entitled running someone else's business because that company has some control over you so therefore you're entitled to some basic rights such as the right to earn the minimum wage the right to holiday pay the right not to be discriminated against so it's just basic rights

so in our case what we fought for and won was the right to be Limby workers and that's what the court confirmed that we were Limby workers. So in 2015 we filed this case in the tribunal. 2016 we had this hearing we won then Uber decided to challenge it and appeal so we then ended up in the appeal tribunal in 2017. Again we won at the appeal tribunal. Uber then decided to appeal this in the High Court. Again, we won in the High Court. And then they dragged it all the way to the Supreme Court. So last year, we had a hearing, a trial at the Supreme Court.

And thankfully, this year, the Supreme Court actually clarified again that we are Limby workers and therefore Uber drivers should be entitled to these basic rights. But Uber did everything they can to fight us during the process. But like I said, I knew from day one when we went into the tribunal, when we started preparing for it, that we were actually workers. And Uber knew this as well. But it was their way of trying to prolong the process to burn us out. So we don't challenge it. And we don't continue with this litigation. Yeah, you know, I think that gives us such a good background on the case. You know, especially to give people an insight into what it means to be a worker or an employee or self employed in the UK context as well. You know, and what it means to be a worker or an employee or self-employed in the UK context as well, you know, and what that means in this case, where the Supreme Court confirmed after a number of other courts did the same, that workers like Uber drivers are, you know, considered a worker status

under the UK law. And so, you know, you described to us what that actually means in terms of being a worker. But can you explain how the Supreme Court framed what rights Uber drivers should have as part of this status? And then what Uber's response was in reclassifying workers and how they then framed what a worker status should be? Because as I understand it, Uber didn't completely follow what the Supreme Court said should be done. I mean, that's right. So I'm glad you actually asked me that because it's too long to try and explain it in the last question. But the issue, as I mentioned, was always about what we filed for was the Limby workers. Now, a lot of people talk about this flexibility or like there's a lot of scaremongering within this gig economy space where you get these bad bosses saying, look, we don't want to classify our drivers away from independent contractors because it means they lose their flexibility or they have to start setting shifts and stuff like that.

And just to give you a little context into that, average Uber driver is working about 35 hours just to offset their expenses. So we have drivers in London working 70 hours just to make £5 an hour after you take away their expenses. So the point is, yes, you do have this freedom to work whenever you want. But how many hours are you working? And the law has a purpose, which is to protect people from being exploited or being abused, such as the right to earn the national minimum wage. Now, the Supreme Court, all their job was to look at everything because Uber kept on challenging the fact that we were not workers. We were self-employed, meaning we should be denied basic rights.

And when I say basic rights, as a worker, we don't have the right to unfair dismissal, which an employee does. We don't have the right to unfair dismissal which an employee does we don't have the right to sick pay you know so we saw that last year during the pandemic where we had drivers that actually lost their life because they contracted the virus you had people that had to go into isolation so all that kind of stuff so they they play an important role in terms of the right driver's need even though we won the worker status there's still a lot more to do because we're seeing a lot of unfair dismissals and like i said drivers don't get that automatically based on this worker status you're not entitled to sick pay so all that kind of stuff that's like the bigger debate going forward but at the same time, since we won, the Supreme Court was very clear in the ruling.

And the ruling was the minute we log on to the app, to the minute we log off, we are workers, meaning we are under Uber's control and therefore we should be entitled to these rights. Now Uber interprets it as we are only workers from the time we accept the job to the time we completed that job. So what that means technically, so let's say I leave for work at 10 a.m. I get into my car. I might get the first job at, let's say, 10 past 10. I might do that trip and it might take me 10 minutes or 20 minutes to do that trip. Now, after that trip, I might be sitting around empty or 20 minutes to do that trip now after that trip I might be sitting around empty in my car waiting for the next job and that could be two hours or

three hours or it could be 10 minutes but during that time I am not getting paid but I am still under Uber's control because if you're cancelling so many jobs etc you get punished so meaning they are controlling you so they don't want to accept the full supreme court ruling and pay us from log off to log on they're only paying us from the time we are engaged with passengers and this was only in march this year when uber decided to actually accept some of the supreme court ruling. So it's still ongoing. So we still are in litigation. Our case hasn't fully concluded. It's gone back now to the lower case. And we have a hearing set for June next year, where the initial tribunal will look at the whole case again. And so in that case, as you've described there, Uber hasn't, you know, actually followed through on everything the Supreme Court said.

So is going back to that lower court then trying to get Uber to actually follow through, I guess, and actually implement the ruling of the Supreme Court? I mean, that's correct. I mean, there's only so much we could do. Like I said, you know, we dragged this case on or we fought this case for six years of our life. And it comes to a state like how many years are we going to continue fighting legally? And this is why as part of a union, there's so many other stuff that you need to do, such as strikes, lobbying and all that kind of stuff in the background that needs to be done alongside in order to get that justice. But the main thing is we do have a supreme court ruling in our favor but uber is failing to fully comply with the ruling you know so generally going back into like the gig economy when you look at companies like uber you know like the model is based on

bme workers vulnerable people that are desperate in such a situation where they're grateful they got a job and they got some kind of income and it's all about exploiting these guys and it's all about oversupplying the platform with more and more drivers to make it cheaper for passengers but the problem we have is if uber does it the way they interpret the supreme court ruling it means when you got oversupply of drivers when they got drivers sitting on each and every street corner, drivers are making less and less money, not getting paid for the time where they actually logged onto Uber's platform, but they're not actually

engaged with a passenger, which is exactly what we're trying to end. We need to have people going into work knowing they will make at least the minimum wage for the time they logged on to the platform. Yeah, you know, I think that's a really important thing to, you know, explain to the listeners as well, right? And to ensure that, you know, these drivers do at least get, you know, a minimum level of pay that they can depend on when they go to do their work. You know, I think ideally, obviously, you would want it to be higher than that. But at least there's a floor so you can have some dependability. And as you say, not be sitting around for hours, you know, just wondering if another fare is going to come in. That's right. I mean, the whole idea of this worker status, what it does is it puts a floor

in the market. So what it does is it stops companies like Uber from keep driving the fares down and down. And that's the end game. It's all about trying to drive the fares down. And at the moment, one of the things that is quite talked about is an Uber cab getting to a passenger. At the moment, it takes about five minutes for an average Uber for you to get an average driver come to you in five minutes. So what they want to do is you know take that down to

seconds but it means in order to achieve that a they need to flood the platform with more and more drivers which means drivers are sitting around empty waiting for it so they're just literally around the corner from the request they get but there has to be a bottom line like a floor so you know a balance between the two. Absolutely, absolutely. No, I think it makes complete sense. You know, obviously, the ADCU has been working on more things other than this case, though that has been, you know, I think very important. And so I wanted to talk about a few of those other things that you've been working on. And, you know, you talked there about the importance of not just, you know, a legal case like the Supreme Court, but also, you know, having strikes and organizing drivers as

well. And I know on September 28th, the ADCU held a strike in eight cities across the United Kingdom. So can you talk a little bit about the importance of holding actions like that, and the kind of demands that workers were making the companies when they went on strike that day? On the 28th of September, the ADCU, our national executive, which consists of drivers, leaders from different cities, we came together and voted to call a national strike. And some of our demands, like we had three main demands. One was for Uber to increase the mileage rate to £2 a mile. So in some cities, it's £1.15. In other cities, it's £1.80. So basically, nationally, what we were fighting for is £2 a mile. And the commission, which at the moment is 25%, to come down to 15%.

So it was about fighting for better pay there. The second demand was for Uber to respect the Supreme Court ruling, which I just mentioned briefly, like the point was they're still not fully adhering to the Supreme Court ruling. So that was our second demand. So basically it means when we're working for Uber, even if we haven't got a ride, at least we're making a living wage. And the third issue that we had was we're seeing a lot of these robo firing that we call unfair dismissals and what we're seeing now more and more is especially when it's around facial recognition gps data and the surveillance data they have uber has

yeah is drivers are just getting kicked off the platform based on you know technology and there's no human involvement which is doing a lot of harm to these workers because you know like it's not just like in London it's more regulated or in the whole of UK we have a regulator so for example in London you have transport for London that regulates Uber drivers so if you get dismissed from Uber they then report you to the regulator the The regulator then revokes your license. And if your license gets revoked, it means you can't work for other apps such as Bolt or Alla, etc. So it means you're completely with no source of income. And maybe you haven't done anything wrong.

So those were the three main demands that we were fighting. Now, the strike was a big success because um we did manage to get a lot of drivers to log off um and it's like years of anger you know even though people think the issue has now been resolved by uber so partly implementing this supreme court ruling but it's not fully resolved which is why we're seeing a big, massive drive toward ADCU. So we're getting drivers joining from all over, all over the UK. So it's good. Absolutely.

It's great to hear that, you know, the strike went really well. One thing that stood out to me as you were talking about the kind of demands that workers were making that the ADCU was making during the strike was how, you know, you said in 2013, one of the kind of appealing things about Uber was that you would get rid of the favoritism of, you know, the human dispatcher, I guess, at the companies, and instead, you know, get the app and the technology to match rides and distribute rides in a way that wouldn't have this kind of favoritism. But then, I guess, over the years, drivers have become more familiar with the ways that these technologies can work

to have many downsides of their own kind of built into them. And that is a big part of, I guess, what you are trying to push back against now and ensure that the technologies are not used in those ways. I mean, exactly. So just to give you a little background on ADCU, you know, like in the UK, if you look at our rule book, one of our organizing principle is around digital data and technology. So what we're looking at is how and what we're doing, using as part of our

collective bargaining and organizing is the digital or the technology side. So in the case of Uber, we got technology being programmed a certain way. And you just think it's not, there's no such thing as favoritism. So back, like go back last year, we had drivers paying 20% commission. We also had drivers that were paying 25% commission. And what we were sort of trying to work out was drivers that paid a higher commission were getting more jobs was drivers that paid a higher commission were getting more jobs than those that were paying less commission so it was clearly programmed a certain way and it's the same when we look at how drivers are getting dismissed you know like and that's something that one we need transparency and uber needs to be able to give us our data

the drivers their data so drivers have the right to object to any kind of mistakes or stuff on the system and how drivers are being profiled in terms of dispatch, like who gets the job, how do they get to jump? That needs to come out a bit more. You know, I think that relates to one of the cases that the ADCU and, you know, a number of workers filed against Uber in Amsterdam, you know, even though you're based in the UK, over its failure to provide access to data and explanation of algorithmic management as required by the GDPR, which is, you know, this EU law governing data. Can you talk to us a little bit about that case, the importance of drivers having access to that kind of information?

And I know in April, I believe it was, the court ordered that a number of drivers actually had to be reinstated because they were algorithmically terminated. So can you talk about those aspects of it? Perfect. So these were test cases that we filed in Amsterdam under the GPDR thing, Article 22 kind of thing. So what we were trying to do is requesting uber to give drivers their data because they got dismissed from the platform and uber failed to comply with giving them all their data but the court in amsterdam actually ruled in our favor and ordered uber one to pay compensation and b to reinstate these drivers so it's quite long It's hard to go into the whole nitty-gritty. But the point was the court looked at it and said,

look, these guys are right. Uber needs to reinstate them because there was no human involvement in deactivating these drivers. It's all based on these algorithms and programming on how these drivers were kicked off the platform. So Uber failed to actually attend the court, and the court actually issued a default judgment in our favor. And you could see a big massive PR by Uber claiming that they weren't aware

of this action or the default judgment, which was completely a PR stunt by Uber. But later on, around June, Uber then were trying to get the union, ADCU, to sign a confidential agreement so we could be gagged and not talk about this. But we refused to do it because we already won six drivers that we had, and also paid them compensation for the damages and the costs involved. But it just goes to show how this company is doing everything. And because they have the money and the resources, they could still afford not to obey the law, make a mockery of it. So, yes, they paid the driver. So what it means now is, and I'm glad we never signed this gagging agreement,

but what it means is we could now file more and more cases. But it shows that Uber just don't want to be transparent and they can get away with all this stuff. But it's really important for the workers to have access to this data because one, it helps whether what they're earning what whether there's breach of any employment laws such as are they making above the minimum wage as uber claims and all that kind of stuff so that was one of the reason why we wanted and

wanted access to this data it seems that a focus on these data and these algorithms is becoming more common you know where we see in spain that the government passed a new law there to give unions access to the algorithms that the companies are using. And I believe there's talk of that happening on the EU level as well in the future, potentially. Is there any kind of movement toward that that you've heard on the UK government level, or has it not really progressed that far there? One of the problems we have here in the UK, the regulators, including the government, are failing to do their bit. And just to take it a step back, like when we're just talking about the employment laws, the laws, like the case we won against Uber, these laws exist for hundreds

of years. It's nothing new. So it wasn't like we come in with some fresh laws and there's a lot of talks about bringing in these new laws and regulation to keep up with technology but i personally disagree with that but like my point is look the laws are there to protect people and what we're seeing is lack of enforcement by government such as like transport for london or the main central government because one they either rather not get involved, and B, they just don't want to fight Uber, to be honest. They'd rather let the workers do the fighting, and it's easier for the government to offload their responsibility onto the precarious workers.

So when we talk about the data side, which is the next thing now, and everyone's talking about technology, we do have the Iico here in the uk but we're not that advanced in terms of enforcement and that is what is lacking and that is what is needed so it means companies know that if they don't obey the law they're gonna get some harsh enforcement against them and that's what's needed here so when we talk about um i know the eu are doing a great job like uh the drivers in france and belgium etc are coming together but we have similar issues where you know like recently we filed a case for discrimination and again this comes out because

we're now workers the drivers have the right not to be discriminated against and what we're saying is the facial recognition software uber use discriminates based on people's color so if you're a person of color it's failed to recognize you and we had drivers so for example last year one of our members last year in june got dismissed from uber's platform because he failed the facial recognition and it wasn't just about getting dismissed from the platform he also had his license revoked from the regulator Transport for London so by the time we were able to help him get his license back that was January so he was out of work for six seven months because of an error made by Uber's software or Microsoft, which they're using.

So regardless, like there was an error there, but the driver had no source of income because of this. And Uber later on apologized and reinstated his account. TFL also gave his license back but this is because you know like everything is done automated in a way and there's no human involvement is causing harm and which is why we had so many drivers having similar issue which is why we launched a case back in June this year and we came public with it last week so we got two we got a courier driver who works for Uber E and also a driver. Again, these are test cases, but we are looking at bringing more and more cases similar in order to end the issue. Yeah. I'm just nodding my head over here as you describe that,

like, especially when you're talking about the enforcement issue and the lack of proper enforcement, that's something that we absolutely see in North America and I'm sure many other parts of the world as well, where governments and regulators just are not willing to do what it takes to, as you say, not just apply new laws that would apply to this sector, but simply to apply the laws that already exist. And that would recognize that these workers who are drivers for ride hailing services or couriers for the food delivery companies, you know, should be treated as employees or workers and should be granted these rights that other workers receive right now, but are not doing it because they're scared or I won't say for sure if they're

scared of taking on the companies or they're just not interested in sticking up for workers in this way. But I think it's a problem that we see in so many different places. I mean, you're right. I mean, it's a lot easier for regulators or government officials or certain people just to sit in the background and pretend they don't know. I mean, it's the same problem. Like if you look at the cases like, okay, we want Uber here in the UK, the highest court in the land has ruled in the driver's favor. But most recently, the drivers in Holland, Amsterdam, had a similar kind of ruling. And then if you look at in Canada, you have the UFCW sort of challenging something similar. And if you look at in California, you've got Uber trying to lobby and chain the laws and regulation and that's

the kind of thing that we're seeing more and more but going back to the amsterdam ruling we have the same regional manager there which is jamie haywood from uber who's in charge of uk and also the europe side now if you look at his statement recently it's like they make it out like they're doing drivers a favor by respecting some of that supreme court ruling like saying things such as like look uber's paying drivers holiday pay they're paying them pension now but it's the same jamie hayward saying the exact opposite in holland saying they would now appeal the decision and fight it. You know, so it just depends where they are. They just go and say different things

in different places. It's all PR, right? Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, you see that in North America too. Like they do the same kind of shameless things where it'll be one message in one place and one message somewhere else.

So yeah, I completely get that. You know, before we close, I have two more questions for you get that. You know, before we close, I have two more questions for you. Firstly, you know, obviously, ADCU has been filing and involved in a number of legal cases, but then it also is involved in, you know, these strikes and organizing workers in the UK to push for their rights as well. So I wonder what you see as kind of the relationship or the importance of having kind of both of these strategies on the go at once to try to push back against these

companies and ensure that workers have the rights that they deserve. I mean, that's a very important question. And I just want to give you a brief background. Like my father come from Pakistan, back here in the UK in the 1960s. And he was a migrant worker who could hardly speak English and he was a factory worker and a lot of people working in the factory were all from similar backgrounds to him Pakistani migrant that hardly spoke English and the unions at the time did a great job in making sure that they were represented they weren't being discriminated against you know they're getting paid good money but they had this power so in my case and just giving you an example like I had to take Uber to court and fight them for seven years which was a lengthy battle and I was lucky in many ways where

we had the solicitors and the lawyers that represented us and stood with us and fought this case but an average worker just does not have the resources and the energy to do that but going back onto the question about my father what they did have is they had this power collective power where if the shop steward at the time decided that the boss was treating one of the employee badly or there's some kind of discrimination the whole workforce would go out and go on strike and that was the biggest fear the bosses had meaning these guys could actually shut down our operation if they all go on to strike now when we move on to today's world when we talk about the gig economy and the way like for example in the case of uber like like drivers don't have fixed place

of work you know it makes it a lot harder to organize and get that collective power but if we could achieve that we don't need these lengthy court battle we could sort a lot of issue out by having the workers together but at the same time when we look at Uber drivers, you know, there's a lot of discrimination around like institutional racism by regulators such as Transport for London. A lot of them are from BME communities. So it's just like they're scared to come forward. People just don't like unions. So there's a big, massive barrier there. And also at the same time, there's also like a class struggle where,

you know, the workers feel they're not being empowered. Now, one of the things that we fix is we're embedded within communities. So for example, like we have Turkish leaders, we have the Somalian drivers as leaders, we have the Bengalis, we have the Pakistanis, so we integrate with these communities and at the same time you know like our mission is to empower the workers we want to see the workers take lead within our union we want them to run the union and that's how it should be so they feel that this is their union you know like whatever we're fighting for the cause it's their cause we're fighting for and it's it benefits them so i mean there's a lot of like that's a bigger debate about how union could work and couldn't

work but the point is it's one of the hardest sector to organize in especially when you're talking about gig workers um but i think we made a breakthrough and one of the reasons were we were consistent in our fight and as as i mentioned earlier on even like um like uber we just we're not willing to do these cheap kind of deal just to get a collective bargaining agreement we want to fight for what's right you know for the future and something that will benefit all of us in the long run i think what you've described there is so important and And I appreciate you kind of drawing that historical example from your father's experience as well, and comparing

that to what gig workers are facing today, and how the situation is different. You know, obviously, I think that the work you're doing is really important. And, you know, as I've said to you, it's given me hope kind of seeing what you're doing over there. And so I really appreciate it. And so I want to end with one final question. You know, we've discussed a lot of what the ADCU has been doing, what the gig economy looks like in the UK, what the situation is for these workers and how they are pushing back. But naturally, you know, I don't know everything that's going on over there. So I just wanted to end with kind of a broader question. Is there anything else that you think that the listeners should know about what the ADCU has been up to or you know just things that are happening

in the gig economy in the uk that are important for people to know i mean generally speaking i just think we're doing really well and going back to when i first started organizing in 2014 and 15 we had a lot of people telling us that it was just impossible to organize these workers based on so many factors and we actually proved them wrong we broke through it and i think going back on to the last thing i said to you i think it really comes down to our focus should be trying to build this collective power and that comes from the driver. So ADCU is 100% funded by the members. And once we got members paying in terms of fighting or maybe launching some kind of legal action and to get that power you've got to be 100 organic so i see a lot of like drivers organization that don't charge membership and i understand why but at the same time it's a needed

kind of stuff because the workers need to be able to build the funds to organise themselves, so they've got the resources. And at the same time, it gives drivers the voices. So what we do different is we also represent drivers individually with licensing issues. So we have a kitty put aside which represents drivers if they had their licence with work, where when you listen to the bigger unions, they talk about not providing a service level, they want to set up an organising, but you've got to have a balance between the two. So, for example, in my case, it's pointless fighting Uber, if I can't help a driver when his licence gets revoked from a regulator. You've got to be able to provide everything and have a balance

between the two. Yeah, you know, I think that makes a ton of sense. And I really appreciate you outlining that. And obviously, I, you know, appreciate you taking the time today and discussing all of this with us. So Yazin, thank you so much. Thank you very much for having me. Yazin Aslam is the president of the App Drivers and Couriers Union. And you can follow him on Twitter at Yazin Aslam 381. You can follow me at at Paris Marks. You can follow the show at at Tech Won't Save Us. Tech Won't Save Us is part of the Harbinger Media Network, and you can find out more about that at harbingermedianetwork.com. And if you want to support the work that goes into making the show every week, you can go to patreon.com slash tech won't save us and become a supporter. Thanks for listening.