Uber's circumvention of social, labour, road-safety and consumer-rights protection
23.3.2015
Question for written answer E-004575-15
to the Commission
Rule 130
Maria Arena (S&D) , Ole Christensen (S&D) , Jutta Steinruck (S&D) , Brando Benifei (S&D)
In its reply of 22 December 2014 to Written Question P-009477/2014, the Commission underlined both the ‘innovative business strategies and technologies [adopted by Uber] to provide certain transport services to consumers' and national authorities’ responsibility to ‘structure their sectorial regulation in pursuit of public policy objectives, without, however, creating unequal conditions or unnecessary obstacles for market players’.
Indeed, several Member States have forced Uber to adapt its service in order to bring it back into legality.
Nevertheless, although Uber has taken steps towards legality, court judgments are still pending and the company continues to harm the European model of worker and consumer protection in the following ways:
- —self-assessment by drivers of their skills (with no real skills assessment or medical examination) and of a vehicle’s condition;
- —unpredictable and significant price variations;
- —no labour rights or social protection for drivers (who do not have employment contracts), no insurance protection and no training;
- —no respect for national authorities’ decisions (for example, Uber is prohibited from operating in Brussels but continues to do so anyway).
In the short term, how does the Commission intend to combine, on the one hand, the necessary support for technological developments that enable citizens to cooperate towards a better society through the sharing of urban transport capacity, with, on the other hand, the need to safeguard a high level of equal rights for consumers and workers, as laid down in EU legislation?