The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Bloomberg
When Uber’s new chief executive officer touches down in London, he’ll find an irate regulator, divided drivers, galvanised rivals, and a key regional manager who’s just announced her exit.
Dara Khosrowshahi was in the UK capital for an emergency meeting on Tuesday with transportation authorities to try to salvage the company’s business in its largest European market.
Khosrowshahi’s arrival is a sign of the potential harm the London ban would have on the company’s business. He’s sticking to the meeting even as he’s also entangled in a boardroom battle in San Francisco with former CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick. The board was scheduled to vote on Tuesday on a large stock sale to SoftBank Group Corp. and governance rules that would diminish Kalanick’s clout. Less than two months into the job, Khosrowshahi’s challenges spread from management to drivers. The manager in charge of the UK and Northern Europe, Jo Bertram, said she was stepping down after four years at the company. Bertram, who was instrumental in building Uber’s business in London, said her departure isn’t related to the licensing and that she’s taking a new job outside Uber. Spokesmen for Uber and Transport for London declined to comment on the details.
Meanwhile, drivers in London are divided about whether to support or protest against Uber. Last week, Uber drivers were among those gathered outside a UK employment tribunal to criticise the San Francisco-based company for poor pay and lack of benefits, arguing the company unfairly classifies drivers as contractors rather than employees to save money and skirt legal liabilities. The judges are deciding whether Uber needs to classify drivers as workers entitled to more benefits, a potentially significant shift for Uber’s business.
Yet drivers are also criticising London transportation regulators who revoked Uber’s license, a move that could take thousands of drivers off the road—about 40,000 in the city, according to Uber. The drivers feel sidelined in London’s fast-moving debate about how to regulate the so-called gig economy, and stifled by a lack of alternative employment. “Drivers are facing financial ruin,†said James Farrar, an Uber driver who is a co-claimant in the employment-rights case against the company. He said regulators deserve blame for not adequately taking drivers into account during its ruling. “Forty thousand jobs in any other sector, we’d have a couple of government ministers parachuting in now.”