Comments on: Rather than celebrating Uber job losses, unions should be putting forward alternatives https://leftfootforward.org/2017/09/rather-than-celebrating-uber-job-losses-unions-should-be-putting-forward-alternatives/ Left Foot Forward is the home for UK progressives. We provide evidence-based analysis on British politics, news and policy. Mon, 16 Oct 2017 15:47:22 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.5 By: Boffy https://leftfootforward.org/2017/09/rather-than-celebrating-uber-job-losses-unions-should-be-putting-forward-alternatives/#comment-927412 Wed, 27 Sep 2017 15:22:07 +0000 https://leftfootforward.org/?p=123673#comment-927412 I agree that our answer should be co-operative. Uber say that the drivers are self-employed rather than being their workers. In that case, it seems fairly obvious that all those self-employed rivers should club together, with the assistance of the Independent Workers Union, and probably the Co-operative Movement to turn themselves into a Co-operative offering their services, and thereby also better placed to deal with companies like Uber.

A simple TU solution is not enough, because in the next few years, companies like Uber will be able to replace human drivers with self-driving vehicles. A few days ago, Paul Mason correctly made the point that we are heading to a situation whereby in a city like London, all transport will be controlled by a single computer. It makes sense for Uber drivers to work together with the other public transport workers unions in London to create a Transport Co-operative, ready for such a development, so that these technological developments can be used by workers rather than against workers.

]]>