Uber’s Flexible Work+ Campaign Is a Scam to Evade Canada’s Labor Laws
Beneath the shiny rhetoric, Uber’s Flexible Work+ program is just another bid by the company to deny its employees their legal rights, like California's Prop 22. For all its riches, however, Uber is vulnerable to a challenge from workers who know what they’re due.
Uber’s Flexible Work+ campaign in Canada represents the company’s latest salvo in its ongoing international fight against labor rights. (Robert Anasch / Unsplash)
Uber Canada is now pressing for Canada’s provinces to enshrine its “Flexible Work+” program into law. This is another typical Uber scheme to prevent its workers from accessing basic protections like a minimum wage and union rights.
Gig workers across Canada made up 8.2 percent of the workforce in the most recently available data. They had an especially rough 2020, living through what has been called “the most asymmetrical recession in Canadian history.”
Some UberEATS couriers were stuck earning as little as $3.99 per trip by the start of this year — down from about $10 per trip at the beginning of 2020 — after the company lowered base compensation rates. Since most couriers averaged only two or three trips per hour, that put them significantly below Ontario’s minimum wage of $14 an hour.
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