Source: Council of Trade Unions – CTU
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi is celebrating the Court of Appeal ruling that Uber drivers were misclassified as contractors and is calling on Brooke van Velden to abandon her plans to block workers misclassified as contractors from testing their employment status in court.
The Court of Appeal’s has ruled that a worker’s status as either an independent contractor or an employee must be determined by the real nature and circumstances of the work and how the working relationship functions. Independent contractors are independent businesses, whereas workers perform work for their employer’s business.
“This is a tremendous victory for working people in Aotearoa New Zealand,” said NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff.
“The ruling proves why workers need access to justice, to challenge unscrupulous employers like Uber who are circumventing employment law by hiring people as contractors.
“Mislabelling genuine employees as independent contractors exposes workers to exploitation, denying them many of the basic protections and entitlements that are provided for employees, such as sick and annual leave, minimum wage, protection of hours and protection from unjustifiable dismissal.
“If Minister van Velden had her way, these Uber drivers wouldn’t have been able to even get their case heard in court. The implications of that are profound would undermine the very foundations of employment law.
“It would create a system that further incentivises companies to exploit the contractor loophole, undermining fair competition and eroding standard employment conditions across industries and the entire economy.
“The Minister must listen to the judgement of the Court of Appeal and recognise the rights of workers to have cases heard in the courts. There is now no excuse to pursue her unethical plans for contractor reform.
“The executive branch has a duty to uphold the rights of workers to test their employment status in court. Attempting to remove their ability to do so, because they don’t like the judicial branch’s decisions, would be an affront to constitutional norms in New Zealand.
“With the rise of the so-called “gig economy”, cases of workers being misclassified as contractors are more and more frequent. The Court of Appeal notes that whether a someone is an employee has “assumed increased importance in light of the growing fragmentation, casualisation, and globalisation of work and workforces in New Zealand”.
“Everyone deserves good work – work that is well-paid, safe and secure and has minimum rights and conditions. That means they need the legal protections afforded to employees,” said Wagstaff.
