Organising challenge of gig economy

The fight against bogus self-employment at companies like Uber isn’t just a matter of going to law, there’s a real organising challenge behind it. That was the message from Mick Rix, national officer at the GMB general union, when he spoke at the Labour Research Department’s annual general meeting last month. 


Rix has been closely involved with the legal challenge to Uber which insists its drivers are self-employed, a practice rejected at a landmark employment tribunal hearing last July. (The company is appealing.) 


The key issue is the control it has over drivers.


By no means Rix’s first brush with the so-called self-employed workforce, it has become an organising exercise in its own right. It’s not “traditional organisation as we know it”, he said, recounting problems of gaining access, overcoming fear, bringing different drivers together, and representing low-paid people who’ve had the risks passed back to them by the employer. 


With other gig economy cases multiplying, there is plenty of work to be done. 


• Members of the 2017-18 LRD executive committee (and nominating organisations): Helen Donoghue, chair (UCU); David Ayrton, vice-chair (NUJ); Howard Marchant, treasurer (Prospect); Robert Phillips (NUT); Ida Clemo (GMB); Ron Douglas (RMT); Rick Graham (Unite); Dave Gott (RMT); Michelle Singleton (UNISON); Bill Taylor (CWU); Val Stansfield (TSSA); Joe Simpson (POA); Kathy Wallis (NASUWT); Jonathan Jeffries (College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London); Andy Hourigan (ASLEF); and Dulcie Fairhurst (PCS).