To wonder if today's Uber ruling means the end of MLMs?

[Flumpaphone]

The Supreme Court today handed down the long awaited ruling in the Uber case and found the company's drivers are employees (and therefore have the right to minimum wage, holiday pay etc) and not self employed.

The ruling says that -

Uber set the fare which meant they dictated how much the drivers could earn

Uber set the contract terms and drivers had no say in them

Requests for rides is constrained by Uber who can penalise drivers if they reject too many rides

Uber monitors a drivers service through the star rating and has the capacity to terminate the relationship if it does not improve

It's going to cost Uber a fortune in back pay for etc and has wide implications for the gig economy in general.

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that those working at the bottom of the pyramid in MLMs (Arbonne, Herbalife etc) are in the same situation and this could potentially finish the MLM companies off. I do hope so.

Does anyone with a better employment law brain than mine have greater insight?

No insight but I hope it will

That's actually an interesting thought!

In what way do you think they are comparable?

There have been many employment vs self employment cases.

You would hope so, but my gut feeling is that the MLM's give just enough semblance of "control" to the people at the bottom of the food chain that they would probably still be treated as self employed.

It's probably clauses like the penalties for rejecting rides which tipped the decision in the drivers favour.

I've just had a brief look and the judgment is actually that they are workers not employees, like with Pimlico.

As I said, I'm not an employment lawyer so not sure of the difference.

In terms of how it seems similar ( let's pick on Arbonne for ease)

Arbonne set the price of the products and the commissions on them and the levels of commission to uplines on sales

Arbonne set the contract terms

Arbonne can penalise "promoted" individuals by demoting them back down if they don't maintain levels of sales

Arbonne can terminate the relationship and dictate how products are sold e.g. no internet selling

I'm sure different MLMs have slightly different practices but they are broadly the same model.