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Uber’s European ride-hailing rival Bolt has begun offering UK drivers paid holidays and a minimum wage guarantee as well as new access to a company pension scheme, ahead of a court hearing next month over their employment status.
The latest changes, which came into effect on August 1, mean company drivers will effectively have the same rights as UK law grants to workers, although Bolt maintains they are self-employed independent contractors.
Estonia-based Bolt, which is currently preparing for an initial public offering, is competing for UK drivers who juggle working across several different platforms, including Uber, which already grants them worker status as a result of a Supreme Court ruling of 2021.
Uber agreed to recognise UK drivers as “workers” following the ruling, a classification that grants them benefits including paid holidays and, in some cases, a pension.
Gig economy Companies have come under increasing pressure to improve pay and conditions for their drivers and couriers, facing strikes on both sides of the Atlantic earlier this year.
They have also been fighting a series of legal challenges over the status of workers. The California Supreme Court ruled last week that app-based ride-hailing and delivery services like Uber and Lyft could continue Treat drivers as independent contractors instead of state employees.
Bolt CEO and founder Markus Villig said in May that the company was working to become “public ready.” In early 2022, a €628 million funding round valued it at €7.4 billion.
Its new offer for UK drivers comes just weeks before it is due to be heard by a London employment tribunal. Claims filed in 2022 by the GMB union. Law firm Leigh Day is also involved in the case, representing more than 10,000 Bolt drivers on a “no win, no fee” basis.
Asked why he was offering drivers the same terms as workers, while still calling them self-employed, Bolt said the new supplements were “boosting drivers’ earnings and providing them with additional financial security.”
Weekly supplements are being introduced to ensure drivers earn at least the equivalent of the minimum wage for journeys undertaken, as well as contributions to a holiday fund. This follows the launch of an optional company pension scheme in May.
GMB national secretary Andy Prendergast called Bolt’s new offer a “desperate and cynical attempt to shirk his responsibilities”.
The GMB will continue to press its claims, he said, in an attempt to secure drivers the right to minimum hourly wages and holiday pay, rather than leaving this to Bolt’s discretion. If the court decides the drivers are workers, they could also be entitled to backdated holiday pay.
GMB and Leigh Day are likely to argue that Bolt’s relationship with drivers is fundamentally similar to Uber’s.
Bolt has highlighted that it offers drivers the option to register multiple people on the same account and negotiate their own terms. The company says this gives self-employed drivers the opportunity to act as “entrepreneurs.”
“Bolt was founded with the intention of empowering entrepreneurs, and our focus remains on supporting drivers to operate independently,” the company said.
However, the GMB said very few drivers actually take this option into practice.
Prendergast said that despite expectations that the Uber ruling would lead to industry-wide change, “that hasn’t happened to the extent we had hoped.” Meanwhile, delays in employment tribunals have meant the case has taken two years to come to a hearing.
“The real concern is the time it takes to get justice,” he said.
Additional information from Camilla Hodgson