The Uber Decision Is Not A Real Victory

Uber drivers have secured a decision in their favour in the Supreme Court, which means that they are classified as workers rather than independent contractors.  As I have written many times, it was, of course the reality that Uber drivers sold their labour-power to Uber, rather than being independent commodity producers and sellers.  They are in the same position as the Scottish pebble collectors, described by Marx, who appeared as independent commodity owners selling pebbles to the stonemasons, but who, because they were so numerous, in reality only sold the pebbles at a price that reproduced the value of the labour-power of the pebble collectors, rather than the actual labour-time they expended, and which was represented by the value of the pebbles themselves.

The court ruling means that Uber must now treat the drivers as employees rather than contractors, and so pay them Minimum Wage, holiday pay and so on.  This will have wide consequences for other gig economy workers too.  In providing the workers with this level of protection, the court ruling is clearly a step forward in he workers' conditions.  However, in a deeper sense, it is not a victory at all, and that is precisely because it does define the drivers as workers rather than independent contractors and commodity sellers.

As workers, employed by Uber, it means that their condition as wage slaves is simply codified and legitimised.  It simply puts their exploitation on a legal footing, rather than creating the conditions under which that exploitation would cease.  One of the drivers who brought the case said on Sky News, this morning, that they regretted that they had had to bring the case, because, he said, the State should be there to prevent workers from being exploited.  That represents two huge fallacies.

Firstly, the state is a capitalist state, and so its function most certainly is not to prevent workers being exploited by capital.  On the contrary, its job, as a capitalist state, is to crate the best possible conditions under which capital can exploit workers, and so maximise its profits, and so accumulate additional capital.  But, even if the state were minded to end such exploitation it could not do it, because the whole basis of capitalism, and of the position of workers is that they are exploited, i.e. they produce surplus value, which is appropriated as profit by capital.  Unless capital is enabled to do that, there is no reason for capital to employ workers, and so it wouldn't!  By legalising the reality that these workers, are simply wage slaves employed by Uber, the decision, necessarily condemns them to be continually exploited by capital, in performing that function.

The real solution for the Uber drivers, as for all other workers in that position is not to settle for continuing to be merely wage slaves employed by capital, but to take the position that capital claims they are in, as independent commodity owners and sellers, and to turn it into reality.  There is a large number of Uber drivers - that is why, as atomised individual labourers Uber is able to only pay them the equivalent of wages - but that large number is also their strength, if instead of seeing themselves as individual labourers, they were to see themselves as a collective.  Forming a trades union does that to a limited degree, but in the process accepts the continued role of the labourer, as simply a wage labourer.

If all of the Uber drivers had formed themselves into a cooperative, they could have dictated the terms under which they would sell their services to Uber.  Indeed, the rational conclusion of that is that, the drivers would be able to set their prices on the basis of what they charged passengers, not what Uber agreed to pay them from what it receives from passengers from the service provided by those drivers.  In other words, the drivers would then charge passengers the fall value of the service they provide.  At best, Uber would be able to charge a rent for the use of its App.  But, the further logic is that a drivers co-op would simply use its own App, so that no such payments to Uber would occur.

The solution for workers does not reside in continuing to accept their position as wage slaves, and settling merely for an amelioration of the condition that places them in, via better wages and conditions, but in recognising their position as the collective owners of capital, over which they should exercise control, and thereby ending their exploitation by capital itself.