Title: GMB asks Uber to cut its commission by 5%
Description: Uber refused a fuel surcharge earlier this year. Nothing has been agreed.
GMB has asked Uber for a short-term cut in its commission, or a rebate, of 5%, to offset higher fuel costs. The union put that first on the agenda for its third-quarter meeting with the company, in a notice to members on 15 October.
GMB says the meeting was due in mid-October and that members would be told the outcome afterwards. The noticeboard has not been updated since the agenda. Nothing has been agreed.
The union does not say whether 5% means five percentage points off the current fee, or 5% of whatever Uber takes. It does not say what the fee is now. It says some licensing authorities and operators have brought in fuel support. It does not name them, or say what they did.
This is separate from the robotaxi fund GMB asked for earlier this month.
The rest of the agenda
GMB says changes to which vehicles qualify should not apply to drivers who have already bought a vehicle on the old terms. It has no objection to new terms for new drivers. It does not say what the new rules are.
On profile photographs, GMB asks what went wrong with renewal alerts and how many drivers were affected. It says an £80 goodwill payment is not nearly enough for lost earnings. It wants drivers to be able to upload a photograph or attend a Green Light Hub in person. If Uber will not do that, GMB asks whether the company will cover the actual loss of average earnings when a system error locks a driver out.
On empty return running, GMB says recent fares during an air traffic outage included long trips with no payment for the journey back. It does not name the airport or the date.
UberX Share is still on the list. GMB says it wrote in early July and expected answers at the second-quarter meeting, which ran out of time. It asks what happens if a driver cancels an added passenger, whether the driver must already be moving, whether that time and mileage are paid, whether a cancel counts like the old decline button, what Uber means by a legitimate reason, and whether these cancels are hitting the cancellation rate.
An earlier undated post on the same noticeboard says Uber will remove Share from UberX in October. The 15 October agenda still treats the questions as open.
The surcharge Uber refused
On 17 March, GMB wrote to Uber, Deliveroo and Bolt about fuel prices after the conflict in Iran. On 15 April it said Uber was paying drivers in Australia an extra 5 cents a kilometre, that it had asked twice for similar help in the UK, and that it had not had a positive reply. Eamon O'Hearn, a GMB national officer, said members were being crushed between fuel prices and the cost of living.
The October notice is the first time GMB has said Uber declined a short-term surcharge. The new proposal is a cut in commission instead.
What Uber says it takes
On 30 October 2023 Uber told UK drivers it no longer charges a fixed service fee on every trip. The amount it keeps can change from week to week, depending on the trips a driver does. That is still the page on Uber's UK site. GMB's 5% is not set against a single rate.