The App Drivers and Couriers Union wants a lifetime basic income for private hire drivers who lose work to autonomous vehicles. General secretary Cristina Ioanitescu said it should match the full loss of average earnings, and that app companies and autonomous-vehicle operators should pay for it.
The union also wants a guarantee for drivers now working on the apps, a just transition fund paid by firms licensed to run autonomous vehicles in the UK, and an immediate stop to new private hire driver licences in London. Nothing in the proposal is law. The union has not said who would qualify, or how the money would be collected.
This is separate from the GMB’s fund, which Congress has already backed. The same union is protesting outside Wayve today. That rally is a different story from this demand.
The sums
Ioanitescu’s figures assume every one of London’s licensed private hire drivers ends up on Universal Credit. TfL’s count for the week ending 4 October was 113,166 driver licences, 124 more than the week before. On that assumption the union puts the annual welfare bill at approaching £3 billion, lost earnings at £3.4 billion, and lost tax at about £6.8 million.
Those are the union’s own sums for a case in which nobody keeps the work. They are not a forecast of what robotaxis will do, and they do not say how many of those licence holders drive full time.
The union also says the gain from a large rollout would sit mainly with the app companies, and that the data behind the technology is managed outside the UK.
What she said
Ioanitescu said the union no longer trusts the apps, the regulators or the government to arrange a fair transition. She said most of its drivers are over 40, many do not speak English as a first language, and many would struggle to find other work. She said a just transition means living wages, not CV classes, night school or job counselling.
She said the companies making the profits, and cutting their UK tax, have enough money to compensate the drivers they want to replace. “Not drivers. And not UK taxpayers.”