“Uberização”: trabalho autônomo ou subordinado?

Abstract

The phenomenon called “Uberização” refers to a new type of work organization, in which a person does transportation business to Uber’s clients using a phone app owned by this Company. The phenomenon of “Uberização” brings us an important discussion about the relationship between workers and this sort of platform. Such discussion is due to the fact that it is known that once the employment relationship is recognized, the employee is protected by labor law. In opposition to that, if the elements that form the employment relationship are not confirmed, the worker will be considered self-employed, which means he does not have the labor rights destined to the employees. Because of that, drivers who work for Uber see themselves as employees and not as self-employed workers, which make them plead for better job conditions and more labor rights. However, seeing self-employed workers as employees creates an insecure atmosphere to Companies that respect the limits of the self-employed work due to the fact that they surprise themselves with unfair labor actions. In this sense, in the present paper, the characteristics of the relationship between drivers and Uber and its compatibility to the elements that form the employment relationship are analyzed by doing a research of legal doctrine and case law about the theme