Uber has been ordered to pay lost wages to a South Australian driver who was booted off the platform after an unproven allegation of threatening behaviour.<\/p>\n
In what the Australian Council of Trade Unions has dubbed a “landmark” ruling, the Fair Work Commission has found rideshare company Uber unfairly deactivated Adelaide driver Mohammad Shareef Hotak’s account and was required to repay him lost wages.<\/p>\n
The Fair Work Commission’s ruling states that on March 24, Mr Hotak was driving for Uber when he picked up a rider and two passengers on Adelaide’s party strip, Hindley Street.<\/p>\n
The rider submitted a report to Uber that Mr Hotak had threatened the passengers with a baseball bat, which Mr Hotak denied.<\/p>\n
Mr Hotak said he asked the passengers to stop using drugs in his vehicle and exit the car, after which the passengers assaulted him from behind and exited his vehicle.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Uber reactivated the driver’s account during the proceedings, but argued no remedy was necessary. (ABC Far North: Phil Brandel)<\/p>\n
A few days after the report was made, Mr Hotak received notice from Uber that his account was being deactivated, which came into effect on April 8.<\/p>\n
Before the incident, Mr Hotak had been driving 40 to 60 hours per week for Uber.<\/p>\n
He had completed more than 6,000 trips in four and a half years and maintained a 4.99 rating out of 5.<\/p>\n
Mr Hotak and the Transport Workers Union commenced an unfair deactivation case with the Fair Work Commission, and while the proceedings were underway, Uber reactivated the driver’s account.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Fair Work Commission noted Mr Hotak had consistently high ratings from his passengers over four and a half years.<\/p>\n
This week, the commission ruled Mr Hotak’s two-month deactivation was “plainly unfair” and had a significant personal and economic impact on the driver.<\/p>\n
The Fair Work Commission ordered Uber to pay Mr Hotak the income he lost during the deactivation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
ACTU secretary Sally McManus says the ruling is a “breakthrough” for gig economy workers.\u00a0 (AAP Image: Joel Carrett)<\/p>\n
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has dubbed it the first unfair deactivation case to secure compensation, and “a watershed moment for gig economy workers” and unions.<\/p>\n
“For too long, the livelihoods of workers and their families were devastated by unfair deactivation by powerful multinational companies like Uber,” ACTU secretary Sally McManus said.<\/p>\n
“The Fair Work Commission’s ruling makes clear that gig workers now have enforceable rights, and that companies must respect them or be held to account.”<\/p>\n
Mr Hotak said he wanted other rideshare drivers facing unfair deactivation to know they were not alone.<\/p>\n
“I know how stressful and frightening it feels when your income is suddenly cut off,” he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
“But we have rights. Reach out to your union, speak up, and don’t be afraid to challenge Uber’s unfairness.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The commission heard Mr Motak suffered financial and emotional hardship as a result of the deactivation. (Reuters: Mike Blake\u00a0)<\/p>\n
An Uber spokesperson said the company was committed to ensuring drivers were treated fairly.<\/p>\n
“We know that losing access to the Uber platform impacts livelihoods, and never take that decision lightly,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
“Our case review processes are human-led by an expert incident response team and where appropriate to review a decision, we will always do this.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Uber has been ordered to pay lost wages to a South Australian driver who was booted off the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[62961,64,63,99,108853,108855,108852,108854,11523,37485,51844,7893,48154],"class_list":["post-165480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-actu","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-fair-work","tag-mohammad-shareed-hotak","tag-ride-share","tag-transport-workers-union","tag-uber","tag-uber-driver","tag-unfair-dismissal","tag-union","tag-unions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}