Uber has been facing controversy decisions regarding Labor Courts in Brazil. On April 11th, the substitute judge Eduardo Rockenbach Pires, from the Labor Court of São Paulo, recognized the employment relationship between the company and the driver making them pay R$ 62.531,00 in labor amounts.
According to the judge, Uber renders services of transportation to consumers (who are passengers), disregarding the human work rendered by drivers. In this case, drivers would not be their clients, but instead workers who use their energy for the company´s profit.
The conclusion was grounded on all five principles which characterize the employment relationship: rendering of the work by individual; personal nature from the worker, non-eventuality; burden; and subordination. However has been recognized the acceptance of eventual work in the platform, the judge understood that the claimant presented evidence about his work with more than forty weekly hours, through unilateral fixed payment by the company and being subject to pre-established rules. Also including the passengers and driver´s reciprocal evaluations, as well as Uber´s demands of insurance benefiting the passengers were considered: “elements that characterize the disciplinary power of the employer”.
A week later, the judge Tamara Gil Kemp, from Labor Court of Gama/DF, decided the opposite, through the inexistence of employment relationship between the claimant and defendant. The legal ground of this judge agreed with Uber, in the sense that the company does not exploit the transportation services, but offers an technological platform of mediation between passengers and drivers. For the judge, there was no evidence to demonstrate submission to a work shift, punishment or any proof that would resemble subordination, since the driver could remain the app off-line and work when they choose to, without being punished for it, as is typical in an employment relationship. The conclusion was that Uber´s drivers could be considered self-employed workers, as partners and sharing profits.
In February, other two decisions were also made in the opposite sense at the Labor Court of Minas Gerais. Nevertheless, the working related problems from Uber are not limited to Brazil. In many countries, drivers are filing claims aiming to recognize the employment relationship. In England and Canada for example, there were decisions that equally recognize employment relationship.