Uber boss threatens Switzerland with withdrawal

Uber has been in dispute with the Swiss authorities for quite some time: While the ride service provider considers itself a pure ride broker, officials classify it as an employer. Geneva defines Uber as a cab service. Suva and the Social Insurance Institution of the City of Zurich also classify Uber as an employer. This means one thing for the company: many obligations and greater responsibility towards drivers. Uber has appealed against the decisions classifying the app provider as an employer.

"...then we would no longer be able to operate here"

How the NZZ on Sunday reports, Uber could soon be history in Switzerland. "If indeed all instances say: you are an employer and there is no alternative besides, we could no longer operate here," Uber Switzerland CEO Steve Salom, told the newspaper. "We are a platform, that's our DNA." Salom doesn't see this assessment as something negative; flexibility and social security don't have to be mutually exclusive, he says.

Self-employed or employed?

Uber considers its own drivers to be self-employed. They need a cab license, a smartphone and a car. Uber arranges the rides for them and sets the fares by algorithm. In the end, an average income of 27 francs per hour should result. Because the drivers cannot set the prices - like normal self-employed drivers, for example - and are thus dependent on Uber, Uber is considered an employer from the authorities' point of view.

At the same time, Uber drivers are completely free to arrange and choose their working hours. A driver can also devote only one hour per month to the job - or not drive at all. From Uber's point of view, an employee relationship under these conditions makes no sense at all.

The main thing insured

What is crucial, however, is that the drivers are insured, says Salmon - regardless of their status. Here, Salmon blames the authorities: Uber drivers in Zurich cannot pay their AHV contributions on their own, because the SVA will only accept them once a court decision has been made.

According to Salom, Uber could also imagine collecting drivers' social security contributions and passing them on to the authorities. With one catch: "Anything we did in that direction would be construed as if we were an employer."

Uber wants to go all the way to federal court

Countless ride brokers are now offering their services abroad. In Switzerland, on the other hand, they do not even compete because of the legal uncertainty or - as in the case of the Kapten platform in Geneva - they withdraw again. Uber, on the other hand, is still willing to fight for its own, very flexible business model for the time being and will take its case to the Federal Court if necessary.

However, a demand by the Unia trade union will not be addressed. Unia believes that Uber owes drivers up to half a billion francs in social security contributions, backdated to 2013. This is so exaggerated and wrong that I don't even know where to begin," Steve Salmon tells the NZZ on Sunday.