Posted on the 9th February 2026 in PHTM News
UK LANDMARK UBER RULING HIGHLIGHTS GLOBAL PATTERN AS AUSTRALIAN DRIVERS GO TO TRIAL
Drivers Representation & Advocacy (DRA), founded by Yaseen Aslam, the lead claimant in the landmark UK Supreme Court case Uber BV v Aslam [2021] UKSC 5, has issued a statement in solidarity with Australian Uber drivers as a major employment status trial begins in Sydney on Monday 9 February 2026.
The Australian case, brought by the Rideshare Drivers Network (RDN), mirrors arguments long rejected by UK courts, where Uber was found to have deliberately mischaracterised its relationship with drivers in order to deny them basic statutory rights.
In the original UK employment tribunal hearing in July 2016, lawyers representing Mr Aslam argued that Uber was hiding behind carefully constructed language to claim its drivers were not workers describing Uber’s approach as “doublespeak” and speaking with “forked tongues” (The Guardian, 21 July 2016): https://www.theguardian.com/.../uber-job-creation-claims...
That position was firmly rejected by the tribunal in October 2016, with judges criticising Uber’s reliance on “fictions” and “twisted language” findings that were ultimately upheld through successive appeals, culminating in a decisive Supreme Court judgment in favour of drivers in 2021. (The Guardian, 28 October 2016): https://www.theguardian.com/.../uber-tribunal-judges...
Despite this clear legal precedent, Uber continues to advance different and often contradictory arguments in different countries, while maintaining the same business model built on control over drivers’ work and pay.
Yaseen Aslam, Founder of Drivers Representation & Advocacy, said: “Uber should do what is right and respect the law of the country it operates in. The sad reality is that workers who are brutally exploited by platform companies, working long hours for low pay with no basic statutory rights, are forced to fight lengthy legal battles themselves simply to assert fundamental rights, while governments and regulators stand by quietly.
"The UK case showed that Uber’s model was built on legal fiction. What Australian drivers are facing is part of the same global pattern.”
Since 2015, Yaseen Aslam has been at the forefront of organising app-based drivers across borders, helping to build international coordination among driver-led movements worldwide.
Through Drivers Representation & Advocacy (DRA), this work now connects genuine driver organisations in over 35 countries, united against the same exploitative platform model.
This is a global fight by design: app companies deliberately isolate vulnerable workers, fracture collective power, and extract profit across jurisdictions while denying basic rights. DRA stands shoulder to shoulder with its comrades in Australia, as drivers everywhere continue to organise, resist, and demand justice from the same multinational corporations.
DRA works in close international solidarity with the Rideshare Drivers Network (RDN) in Australia. Both organisations represent app-based drivers, including Uber drivers, and share the same objective: securing dignity, fair pay, and basic employment protections for platform workers.
The Australian proceedings — Weddall & Ors v Rasier Pacific Pty Ltd — will test whether Uber drivers in Australia are employees or independent contractors, a question already answered by the highest courts in the UK and New Zealand.
DRA believes the Australian case is of significant public interest in the UK, demonstrating how multinational platform companies adapt legal arguments across borders while maintaining the same underlying labour practices.
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