Change to Addison Lee driver contracts boosts earnings
A new contract for Addison Lee drivers has resulted in a seven per cent boost to earnings.
The new deal has been road tested by a small number of the private car hire company’s drivers, who have reported an increase in the amount they are taking home compared with this time last year.
The deal is meant to incentivise drivers to work at peak times.
“It’s more transparent and it’s more competitive,” Catherine Faiers, operation director at Addison Lee, told Morning Wire
Recently Addison Lee drivers blocked Mayfair’s Berkeley Square in a protest over a fall in pay rates.
Members of GMB, the union for private hire drivers, blocked the road outside the office of Carlyle Group, that bought Addison Lee for £300m in 2013.
The union claimed that Addison Lee, the UK’s largest minicab operator, cut drivers’ pay to compete with taxi app Uber in the capital.
Steve Garelick, branch secretary of the GMB union’s professional drivers branch, told Morning Wire at the time:
Carlyle Group imposed deals and slashed pay rates without consulting the drivers or the union. Some drivers have seen their pay reduce by up to 50 per cent and this has left many drivers worse off.
We don’t want to demean the [Addison Lee] brand. We’re upset about the lack of engagement and want the drivers to be fairly compensated.
In April this year, Addison Lee drivers staged a protest in Berkeley Square over pay disputes.