This news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.
TimesLIVE reports that a group of Uber drivers in SA will be heading to court to seek rights including compensation for unpaid overtime and holiday pay, their lawyers advised on Tuesday.
They will be hoping for a similar victory to that of British drivers earlier this month. In both the UK and SA, Uber drivers are treated as self-employed, affording them only minimal protections in law, a status the US ride-hailing company sought to maintain in its long-running UK legal battle. That ended last week when Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that a group of 25 drivers were entitled to worker rights such as the minimum wage. While Uber said the decision did not apply to all its 600,000 drivers in the country, it was a blow to the company’s business model and a significant victory in battles being fought on many fronts against the so-called gig economy. The SA case could affect up to 20,000 drivers, British law firm Leigh Day and Johannesburg-based peer Mbuyisa Moleele Attorneys said. They did not specify when the case would be filed. The law firms said that in SA Uber drivers often did not own their own cars and had to work long hours to make ends meet on their current wages.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Emma Rumney at TimesLIVE
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page