A former Uber Eats delivery driver on Friday continued her fight to be classified as an unfairly sacked employee.
The former delivery worker, Amita Gupta, was allegedly sacked by Uber Eats for being 10 minutes late with an order. She also claimed in the lawsuit that she was only paid AU$300 for 96 hours of work. The Australian minimum wage is AU$18.93.
Gupta brought the dispute to the Federal Court after the Fair Work Commission (FWC) in April found[1] that she did not have an employee-employer relationship with Uber Eats.
The FWC came to the decision that such a relationship did not exist between Uber Eats and Gupta as she could perform her work whenever and for as long as she wanted. This reason, among two other "key critical factors", was what steered the commission's decision.
This was despite the FWC noting that Uber Eats has the power to set drivers' pay, ban drivers from having commercial relationships with restaurants, and ban drivers from subcontracting work to others. At the time, these factors were not enough to meet the threshold of creating an employer-employee relationship.
Appealing the FWC's decision, Gupta's senior counsel Mark Gibian said on Friday that the ability to choose when to work should not dictate whether delivery workers are defined as employees or independent contractors. He said this was because Uber has a significant degree of control over how deliveries are conducted.
Gibian provided the example of how delivery workers are not provided with the names of the restaurants they would pick up from until they accept delivery requests, which he argued puts workers in a position where it