The UK definitely does not have “full employment” unless you have a very stretched meaning of the word “full”. Even if you think the level of unemployment is okay, the level of underemployment reveals things are very far from rosy.
Above you said "they're doing it because they like working for Uber". Now you say it's just the best option they have. That's quite different
> If uber wasn't their best option they simply move to a better job.
Simply? You know there are costs and risks associated with changing jobs, right?
> If you ban uber you simply remove the current best option for most people working for uber
This is blackmail and using workers as hostages. If Uber were a decent company, it would have hired the workers they need instead of the fraud that is the partner scheme. In this situation of Uber losing license to operate, the drivers would either be still employed or be fired and get severance packages and unemployment benefits.
This is why a lot of people dislike and want the "gig economy startups" gone: they ignore the rules in the name of "user experience", exploit their workers to keep prices down and eat up the market, and then use the position they have to force their views on public policy. Governments must stop them and make them pay what they should have paid if they were operating correctly.
People who want Uber banned are often middle-class people following their left-wing ideology pretending to be on side of the working class worker. That or black cab drivers.
If you actually listen to vast majority workers working Uber they're ok with it. They enjoy the flexibility and the lack of obligations. If people want more fixed work they can get it at the moment.
Essentially you are taking the choice away from these people to work for uber, based on your own version of your morals and not theirs.
Your imposing your own morals on people who don't want your morals. That can be dangerous.
They seem very happy indeed. So happy they have recently striked over pay and conditions [1]. A MIT study also showed the big profits they have (26% make more than minimum wage in the US!) [2].
>Your imposing your own morals on people who don't want your morals.
You are wrong. It is not morals. It is the law. Uber is bypassing laws, full stop.
According to a government report[1] 68% of workers are satisfied working for ride-sharing services. Which admittingly isn't super high, but not awful either. But the most important thing like is the independence it gives.
What a ridiculous position - the UK only has full employment right now in part because of the tactics of companies like Uber. Gig-economy companies pump the "self-employed" figures with poor wages, hidden costs, and no employment benefits.
You could pay the whole country a penny a day if all you cared about was boosting a number metric. It wouldn't somehow translate to worker satisfaction.
As was pointed out in the other reply - if you claim that full employment means that people always have other opportunities than Uber, then there is no harm in axing Uber. That there are worse actors than Uber in the job market is a terrible defense of it.