Former Uber lobbyist Mark MacGann attended a committee hearing at the European Parliament in Brussels.Former Uber lobbyist Mark MacGann attended a committee hearing at the European Parliament in Brussels.Last modified on Tue 25 Oct 2022 20.48 BST
MacGann said he hoped his testimony would help the lawmakers understand why “giving disproportionate power in legislation to huge tech platforms risks shattering the social justice” MEPs had sought to defend. MacGann said it would be unfair for drivers to be required to hire expensive lawyers and go to labour courts to prove they were employees. “The financial burden has to be on those who can afford it, which means the platform companies and not the drivers,” he said. “Companies like Uber have so much money to drown you in legal fees,” he said.
While he said “well-organised transparent lobbying” was fundamental to parliamentary democracy, he told MEPs it should concern any democrat when the balance of power was so skewed. “When tech companies have disproportionate financial resources to push their message, at the expense of the far less powerful workers upon whom their model is built – there is something truly undemocratic happening.”
He recalled that governments were swayed by the perception that “all these cool kids from Silicon Valley” were going to generate much-needed economic growth, which meant some ministers turned a blind eye to the company’s “highly unorthodox” methods.