Uber It is not a Spanish company, however, it has soon learned from the picaresque of a large part of the business sector in our country and it is that, despite the fact that a Barcelona court has ruled that the company makes use of a "disguised employment relationship" when hire some of its managers, the truth is that this is a too common practice against which it is necessary to fight, even if they do not have as much pull as Uber.
Thus, the sentence issued by the Social Court in Barcelona, which obliges the company to recognize the seniority of another of its directors, It is a hard blow for Uber Spain, which has always defended in its business model that drivers are not employees, but companies, and apparently, their managers were not employees either.
Uber executives are employees, not companies
The Uber Spain headquarters are located on Avenida Diagonal in Barcelona. And there, an official from the General Treasury of Social Security traveled several times, suspecting the existence of workers in irregular conditions. One of those workers is Joan Pont Prats, who from May 2014 to January 2016 served as Marketing Director. Post participated in the deployment of Uber in Spain; He complied with an established schedule by attending his workplace every day and followed the guidelines set by the company, however, Uber had hired him as a company, and not as a worker.
Uber sign
According to the magistrate of the Social Court Number 9 of Barcelona, it is "a case of an employment relationship formally disguised in a mixed company and industrial appearance contract", in such a way that, by judgment 29/2017, Uber has been condemned to recognize the seniority of Joan Pont Prats in the company from the same day he joined of her as a de facto worker.
This is a case similar to that of Manuel Pujol, to which Uber must recognize his seniority in the company since, as head of Uber Eats In Spain, he set up the office and even took care of the acquisition of the workers' telephones. Can a freelancer handle this? The judge ruled not.