Anita Rosentreter: Workers First Union deputy secretary on the Uber drivers winning the battle for employee status in new ruling

There's a growing push for a future relationship between Uber and the unions, including collective bargaining. 

Four drivers have officially won their battle to be recognised as employees in a Supreme Court ruling announced today. 

Uber argued they were contractors. 

Workers First Union deputy secretary, Anita Rosentreter, says the Employment Relations Authority can now calculate how much Uber owes other members. 

"But what about the system going forwards? Clearly, it's not been working for people through the collective bargaining process, we really want to improve the Uber system for all drivers." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bray and Bridge under drivers. Sorry, Uber drivers, it's five
eighteen on news Talk ZBB. Have the same right as
any other company employee. This is a landmark Supreme Court
case unanimously throwing out Uber's appeal which aim to restrict
labor rights to their drivers as contractors. Workers First Union
will now progress with collective bargaining on behalf of the

(00:20):
drivers and need to Rose and traders with US Workers'
First Union Deputy Secretary Anita Good evening, Hi, Ryan, So
what rights do they now have?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
So they have the same rights that any other employee
has in New Zealand? I mean the big ones that
you know, most people would think of a minimum wage,
annual leave, you know, other types of leaves, sickly, can
we save the contributions. A big one for Uber drivers
is they now have rights around you know, job protection.
So Uber shouldn't be able to just dismiss them at

(00:53):
the drop of the hat without going through any due process.
So that's a really important one for them.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
So for these four employees, he's obviously significant ruling. But
what about you've got about a thousand members who are
driving ubers? Have they got that right?

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah? That's right?

Speaker 1 (01:07):
So what about them what happens now to their situation.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
So we've already lodged with the Employment Relations Authority claims
on behalf of all of our current members, and we'll
continue to lodge as new drivers join, basically saying that
we think the company owes the money for everything that
they should have received already if the company was properly
recognizing them as employees the whole way along. So the

(01:33):
Authority has been waiting for the Supreme Court's decision before
they started any work on these claims. But now that
we've got that, they'll launch into a process to calculate
exactly what it is that Uber owes those people. So
that's a really important process we'll go through. And then
obviously we're also looking to collective fleet bargain with and
this is really the future focused part of it. We

(01:53):
sort of like look back and think, Okay, you know
they're owed a certain amount of money, let's fix that up.
But what about the system going forwards? Clearly it's not
been working for people go through the collective bargaining process.
We really want to improve the erber system for all
drivers in New Zealand and need.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
To How much are we talking here? Total for these
workers hundreds of millions potentially, I mean potentially.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
It's really hard to say at this point because it's
totally contingent on how much driving they've done. So the
more driving a driver has done, the longer they've been
engaged with Uber, the more likely they are to the
old and more significant amount of money. And then lack
wives with drivers who've only just started or who drives
part time, they're going to be owed less. But yes,
we're looking at a very very large bills Ober.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
What happens if you are an Uber driver and you
want to take it, you don't want to work today?
Does that mean, you know, can you just do you
have apply for leave if you're if you're an employee,
you'd have to, right.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, I mean at the moment, you don't have to
do that if you're driving for Uber. But what we've
found is that the reality is is that if you
want to make any money at all driving for Uber,
and what you tend to do is you fall in
line and drive the hours that they want you to drive.
So it's no coincidence that most drivers who do it
full time end up working like, for example, Friday night,

(03:12):
Saturday night and rush hour.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
But that's when people want to drive the hours.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Those aren't the hours, Dy, but those aren't the hours
that they want to work.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
If you don't drive an Uber, I'm sorry, I need
to don't drive an Uber. Those are the hours people
want the cars.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
I mean the thing I'm not saying nobody should be
driving those hours. And absolutely that's when the work is,
that's when the work needs to be done. That's when
people need to drive. But there's nothing to say that
people shouldn't be earning minimum wage to do that work, right,
that's it's just not right that the right thing to
do a crap ton of money in our country.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
They can surely get There is no doubt about drivers,
there's no doubt about that. But what's your message to
people who use Uber? Because there this will put their
prices up?

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Right, well, not necessarily, because Uber has been off rading
this model all over the world and there's been a
whole bunch of different, you know, attacks on it and
approaches to it, and they have threatened that everywhere they've gone,
as said, you know, any kind of challenge to our
business model will put prices up and we might pull
out of the country. And so on and so forth,
but more often than we've actually just seen them continue

(04:19):
to operate the way that they've always operated. So and
like we said, there's a whole heap of money going
to this company at the moment. At the moment, it's
about priorities, right. They can choose to put the money
where it should be going, which is in the pockets
of their drivers and people who are actually bringing the
money in with their services.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Nita, appreciate your time. Anita Rose and Traded with us
from First Union. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news Talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,
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