Technology

A UK union that represents the interests of Uber drivers has called a 24 hour strike for tomorrow.

Ride-hailing giant Uber may not be comfortable thinking of the people who do the driving on its platform as workers but, in 2016, a UK employment tribunal ruled against its classification of a group of then current and former drivers as independent contractors after they brought a legal challenge; and again in 2017 when Uber lost its first appeal against the tribunal ruling.

Though Uberappeal continues.

Today one of the unions that campaigns on behalf of individuals providing labor on so-called ‘gig economy& platforms, theIndependent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), announced the strike action by Uber drivers.

It said Uber drivers are demanding an end to unfair deactivations (described by the union as ‘de facto dismissals&); an increase in fares to £2 per mile (vs the current rate of £1.25p/m in London); a 10% reduction in commissions paid by drivers to Uber (currently 25% for UberX); and calling for Uber to immediately apply the tribunal judgement and implement &employment conditions that respect worker rights for drivers, including the payment of at least the minimum wage and paid holidays&.

The union argues Uber drivers should be classified as Limb (b) workers under UK law, rather than ‘independent contractors& as the company claims.

Itasking Uber users to respect the strike and not use the app tomorrow.

The chair of the IWGBUnited Private Hire Drivers branch isJames Farrar, who was one of the former Uber drivers who brought the 2016 tribunal action against the company.

The 24 hour strike will take place on October 9, from 1pm,in London, Birmingham and Nottingham.

The IWGB said participating drivers will stageprotests outside Uberoffices in all three cities at the start of the strike.

In a response statement emailed to TechCrunch an Uber spokesperson told us:

&We are always looking to make improvements to ensure drivers have the best possible experience and can make the most of their time driving on the app. Thatwhy over the last few months we&ve introduced dozens of new features, including sickness, injury, maternity and paternity protections. An academic study last month found that drivers in London make an average of £11 an hour, after accounting for all of their costs and Uberservice fee. We continue to look at ways to help drivers increase their earnings and our door is always open if anyone wants to speak to us about any issues they&re having.&

A company spokesman also flagged up a number of changes Uber has made in the UK since the tribunal ruling, including expanding a free insurance product it offers to drivers and couriers including sickness, injury and maternity - paternity paymentsacross Europe.

The spokesman also pointed to a number of other changes itmade, such as to paid waiting times, in-app tipping, and discounted access to savings products such as pensions and free skills courses.

He also flagged Uberrecent launch of a new driver app with real-time earnings tracking and access to data insights intended to help drivers boost their earnings; and a 24/7 telephone support line for drivers and passengers (which was actually a requirement of Londontransport regulator).

The company also says it has formalized how it listens to and responds to driver feedback in every city it operates in — albeit, not well enough to steer off this latest strike.

All the changes it flags might well be positive steps in terms of improving Uber drivers& lot but if UK judges continue to find these folks should in fact be classified as workers Uber will find itself having to shell out a whole lot more money to keep operating in Europe.

The company haspreviously saidthat if it had to provide all the ~50,000 ‘self-employed& Uber drivers on its platform in the UK with workers& rights it would cost its business &tens of millions& of pounds.

Ubernext appeal against the tribunal judgement will be heard later this month, on30 and 31 October.

LinkedIn, the social network for the working world with close to 600 million users and now under the wing of Microsoft, has announced an acquisition as it continues to work on expanding the ways that people already on the platform use it. It has acquired Glint, a startup that provides employment engagement services for businesses and other organizations.

Terms of the deal are not being disclosed. For some context, Glint had raised nearly $80 million — including these rounds for $27 million and and $20 million in the last two years — was valued at around $220 million in its last round according to PitchBook. Investors included Bessemer Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Shasta Ventures and Meritech Capital Partners.

The news was announced both by LinkedIn and Glint itself in blog posts.

Daniel Shapero, VP of Talent Solutions at LinkedIn, said that the team from Glint will join LinkedIn and continue to work as a salient entity within it under current Glint CEO and founder Jim Barnett.

One big focus for LinkedIn over the years has been how to expand the amount of engagement — and therefore revenue — it derives from paying customers, and in particular businesses that are on its platform. Today some of LinkedInrevenue generating products include premium memberships, recruitment (Talent Soutions) and education, by way of Lynda.com. Glint is another step ahead in that wider strategy tobuild out more services for those users, alongside existing services like education,CRM tools and, most recently,business intelligence.

And the blog post from Shapero, who heads up Talent Solutions, is another indication of how this will fit into LinkedInrecruitment business. Today a business might use LinkedIn for recruitment. Now, tomorrow, it can continue to use LinkedIn for more services around those employees once they have been hired. Glintcurrent list of products includingEmployee Engagement,Employee Lifecycle,Manager Effectiveness, andTeam Effectiveness. As we have described before, Glint works by way ofemployee surveys, which it then analyzes using machine learning, natural language processing and predictive analytics. Its reports measure how employees feel about things like management, compensation and workplace culture and makes suggestions for how companies can improve their scores.

The idea is that this helps to reduce the expense of recruiting and training new employees.

LinkedIn has already been building out solutions to help employees with their career development (for example with its educational products), and this will play an adjacent role on the company-wide front, since some of the feedback can be used to help tailor training courses for employees, and so on.

&We believe that Glint has uncovered a modern HR best practice that every company should do: Regularly gather employee feedback on work, culture, and leadership, and give leaders the tools they need to translate those insights into action,& Shapero writes. &At LinkedIn, as a customer of Glint, we&ve experienced the value that this brings first-hand. Glint provides executives with the tools to answer questions about the health and happiness of the talent they have, while giving managers at all levels the access and insight they need to improve.&

LinkedIn tells me that Glint will not be shutting down its existing service as it integrates into LinkedIn.

The timing of this announcement is also notable: LinkedIn is kicking off its big Talent Solutions conference and this helps set the tone for where ithoping to take the division.

Updated with more about what happens to Glint post-acquisition