Union heavies GMB are taking legal action against the increasingly popular private driver app Uber, because it doesn’t cap how much money their drivers can earn. They want Uber to force their drivers to take breaks, introduce a maximum number of hours they can work and make them take holidays.
Drivers who use Uber are self-employed, earning as much or a little as they please. There will be around 42,000 Uber drivers in London by next year, as drivers take the no-brainer decision to use an app that reliably provides them work at the touch of a button. Onwards comrades…
The tube strike is over and, courtesy of Google Trends, Techno can provide some insight into what Londoners thought of the £50,000-a-year drivers who made them late for work. Searches for “driverless trains” rocketed over the last 24 hours…
As Techno has revealed before, the only thing stopping the introduction of driverless tubes is the lack of political will to get tough on the trade unionists currently driving them. Robots don’t strike…
In scenes more reminiscent of Caracas than mainland Europe, AFP reports that the CEO of Uber France and the General Manager of Uber (Europe) have been arrested:
“The spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor says two Uber managers have been taken into custody for questioning over “illicit activity” linked to the ride-hailing company’s low cost service.”
Like in an Ayn Rand dystopia, arrested for providing customers with a better, cheaper service at the behest of unions.
Guido has written previously on how Labour have let trade union donors buy influence in the House. Well, they have been caught red handed once again.
On May 29, Labour peer Baroness Turner sponsored a Private Members’ Bill seeking to reform Easter trading laws – introducing it at its first reading in the House of Lords.
The bill would have removed the prohibition on Easter trading for large shops.
Two weeks later, on the afternoon of June 16, the general secretary of the USDAW union emailed Labour peers asking them to oppose the Labour bill:
From: John Hannett
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Subject: Please oppose the Easter Day Trading Bill – Second Reading on Friday 19th June
Dear XXXX,
As the main retail union for the UK’s 3 million shopworkers, Usdaw urges peers to oppose the Private Member’s Bill on Easter Day Trading at second reading on Friday. The UK already has the longest trading hours in Europe, with over 150 shopping hours a week, and only 2 days per year of large stores being closed – Christmas Day and Easter Day…
As the attached briefing sets out, two thirds of shopworkers are already under pressure to work on Sundays, and this pressure intensifies at busy trading times, with holidays not permitted…
For these reasons, I urge you not to support the Easter Trading Bill.
Yours sincerely
John Hannett
General Secretary, Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive & Allied Workers)
Just three days after that email was sent to Labour peers, Baroness Turner withdrew her bill:
In the last five years, USDAW has donated over £6 million to the Labour Party. It has regularly lobbied in defence of exisiting Sunday trading laws.
A major Labour donor, which lobbies heavily on a single issue, successfuly gets a Labour bill withdrawn after lobbying Labour peers. It stinks…
Having served 25 years as a national secretary for Unite, career comrade Bernadette Fisher finally got the call up to be a Labour councillor in Whitstable in May.
Six weeks into the job and she is already retweeting tasteless photoshops of Auschwitz:
When she isn’t agitating, Bernadette spends her spare time working as a yoga teacher. Not very “om”…
Video has emerged online of cabbies kidnapping an Uber driver “to make an example of him” as vested interests turn on disruptive challengers around the world.
During a protest against Uber in Marseilles, unionised cabbies used the app to summon a cheaper driver.
When he turned up they let the air out of tyres, commandeered his vehicle and forced it to join their protest.
When is the world going to wake up and realise that Uber is a solution and not a problem?
