Ride hailing firm Bolt has been granted permission to appeal the findings of its November 2024 employment tribunal judgment regarding worker status.
The case was brought by a group of claimants, who represented fewer than 10% of Bolt drivers. The tribunal concluded that they should be classified as workers rather than self-employed independent contractors.
Permission to appeal was granted because the court stated that the tribunal’s reasoning needed further examination.
According to Bolt, its appeal will focus on drivers’ use of multiple ride-hailing apps simultaneously, which it calls multi-apping, because it believes the tribunal failed to properly consider how drivers operate in the modern gig economy, such as rejecting trips and working job by job with gaps in between. It argued that the tribunal addressed this in limited detail and did not fully engage with the evidence on how this working pattern indicates independence, rather than dependence.
It will also cover how its rejection rate data shows drivers can, and frequently do, reject trips, often rejecting more. Drivers using Bolt are not penalised for rejecting work and as a result, there is no irreducible minimum obligation to accept trips during availability time.
The tribunal concluded that drivers were working during periods of availability when not multi-apping, but they can make themselves available to other operators at the same time. According to Bolt, it has no means of determining whether or when a driver is multi-apping, which has implications under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998.
The firm will additionally focus on the correct legal classification of work and if availability time constitutes working time. It argues that the tribunal erred in concluding the claimants performed unmeasured work within the meaning of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015.
A Bolt spokesperson said: “The decision to grant permission to appeal reflects that important legal questions arise from the original ruling. Bolt has consistently supported drivers’ strong preference for the ability to work independently and flexibly, and we will continue to defend that choice.”
