A recent Fair Work Commission decision involving Uber has raised a serious question about how Australia’s new gig worker laws are operating in practice.
Procedural fairness matters. Nobody should lose their livelihood because of an arbitrary decision. But when a business receives repeated safety complaints, investigates them and has supporting data, should its decision be overturned because the customers who made the complaints did not personally attend a hearing to give evidence?
In my view, that sets the bar in the wrong place.
The Case
The Fair Work Commission recently ordered Uber to reinstate a driver who had been deactivated following multiple passenger complaints alleging dangerous driving, excessive speeding and mobile phone use while behind the wheel. According to reports, Uber argued that the complaints, together with speed data, justified removing the driver from the platform. The Commission disagreed and found the deactivation was unfair. Uber is now appealing the decision and has publicly raised concerns about the implications for passenger safety and the operation of Australia’s new gig economy laws.
According to the reported facts, Uber received multiple complaints about the driver’s conduct over several months. The allegations included excessive speeding, dangerous driving and mobile phone use while driving. Uber also says it had speed data that supported its concerns. This was not a case where a driver was removed because of a single complaint or an arbitrary decision. Complaints were received, an investigation was undertaken, information was reviewed and a decision was made.
While the case itself is significant, it raises a much bigger question for employers and business owners.
Should the Fair Work Commission be second-guessing safety decisions made by businesses after they have investigated complaints and assessed the available evidence?
The Background
Australian workplace laws have historically maintained a clear distinction between employees and contractors. Employees could challenge disciplinary action and termination through workplace tribunals. Contractors generally could not. They operated under commercial arrangements and disputes were typically dealt with through contractual and commercial processes.
That changed with the Federal Government’s Closing Loopholes reforms. The legislation introduced a new category of regulated workers, including certain “employee-like” gig economy workers, and gave the Fair Work Commission new powers to deal with unfair deactivation claims. From 26 February 2025, eligible gig workers gained the ability to challenge a deactivation through the Fair Work Commission, even though they remain contractors rather than employees.
Supporters argue these protections are necessary because digital platforms can effectively remove a person’s source of income with the click of a button. That’s a fair argument.
The issue raised by this case, however, is not whether gig workers deserve protections. The issue is how those protections operate when they collide with legitimate public safety concerns.
The Real Issue
The real issue isn’t whether Uber’s investigation was perfect.
The real issue is whether the Fair Work Commission should be substituting its judgement for the judgement of an organisation that received complaints, conducted an investigation, reviewed supporting information and made a risk-based decision.
Businesses are expected to act when credible safety concerns are raised. In fact, they are regularly criticised when they fail to do so. Whether it’s a transport operator, a disability provider, an aged care service, a childcare centre or a community organisation, leaders are expected to identify risks, investigate complaints and make decisions that protect the people using their services.
What concerns me about this decision is the apparent weight given to the fact that the passengers who made the complaints did not personally attend to give evidence.
Most customers who lodge a complaint expect the business to investigate it. They do not expect to become participants in legal proceedings. They do not expect to be cross-examined. They do not expect their safety complaint to become a tribunal matter. I believe Fair Work got it wrong and I look forward to seeing the outcome of the appeal.
If businesses are effectively required to produce complainants as witnesses before they can rely on customer complaints, we risk creating a system where organisations become reluctant to act until they have gathered enough evidence to defend themselves in litigation rather than enough evidence to manage an identified safety risk.
That is a dangerous shift in thinking.
Written complaints are evidence. Multiple complaints describing similar behaviour are evidence. GPS data, speed records and platform information are evidence. A business should be able to investigate that information, assess the risk and make a reasonable decision without having to convince every complainant to enter a witness box.
A Fair Work System That Keeps Expanding
This case also highlights how quickly the Fair Work Commission’s jurisdiction has expanded.
The unfair deactivation regime only commenced in February 2025, yet reports suggest around 500 gig economy unfair deactivation and related applications have already been lodged. Many involve disputes about platform access, algorithmic decision-making and contractor relationships that would never previously have been considered workplace relations matters.
That matters because every new jurisdiction creates more hearings, more appeals, more complexity and more pressure on a system that is already managing a significant volume of workplace disputes.
The issue is not whether gig workers deserve protection.
The issue is whether the Fair Work Commission is becoming the default destination for every dispute connected to work, regardless of whether it involves an employee, a contractor, an app or a commercial platform.
At some point, policymakers need to ask whether this expansion is actually improving outcomes or simply creating a larger, more complex and increasingly legalistic system.
The Bloom HR Takeaway
Businesses should investigate complaints, provide procedural fairness and make decisions based on evidence. Uber appears to have done exactly that.
The Fair Work Commission is entitled to ensure the process was fair. However, when a decision involving public safety is overturned because of procedural fairness concerns, then its gone too far. The unfair deactivation regime was introduced to prevent arbitrary decisions. It was never intended to make businesses hesitant to act on credible safety concerns.
If multiple complaints, an investigation and supporting data are not enough, what exactly is enough?