Headline: Uber wins French employment case

Sub-headline: Labour tribunal decides Uber was not an employer, in contrast with UK ruling

Here is the critical paragraph in this Financial Times ‘news story’ about Uber in France, and Florian Menard’s case before a ’employment tribunal’ :

The tribunal said Mr Menard had been free to drive the hours he chose and to refuse trips. “The tribunal holds that the parties are bound by no employment contract and that this is in fact a commercial contract concluded between Mr Menard and Uber,” the ruling said. Mr Menard has one month to appeal.

Yet all of the above may be true, about right of refusal and hours, but is M. Menard paid directly  by his customers, or is he paid by his employer Uber? If  Uber issues pay checks, must it deduct taxes, and social insurance etc. ? The rise of M. 37%, Macron, sealed the fate of M. Menard? The ineluctable onslaught of En Marche?

In America the ‘independent contractor scam’ is used extensively by companies who feel no loyalty towards their workers, and exploit the desperation of a work force, in the Age of the collapse of the Neo-Liberal swindle. Yet the IRS has been, in the past, strict about this legitimacy of this nebulous employment status.

Never fear the Financial Times editors, in their Corporatist wisdom, didn’t open a comments section: call it the fear of their own readership’s wrath!

Almost Marx

https://www.ft.com/content/240b1da0-0cbd-11e8-8eb7-42f857ea9f09