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An Uber driver banned after 16 misconduct allegations – including speeding, crashing while using his phone and making sexualised comments – has won his job back and a year of lost pay after the workplace tribunal blasted Uber’s failure to gather evidence and its bot’s “nonsensical” messages.
Uber’s legal loss follows a string of Fair Work Commission (FWC) decisions that have been scathing of the $205 billion company’s internal complaints handling processes and repeatedly found it to have failed to properly engage with new laws introduced last year that give gig economy workers an employee-like appeals avenue to fight “deactivation” via the commission.
The latest case, in which Uber’s industrial relations lead Laura Tierney gave evidence, concerned a Melbourne driver booted from the platform in June last year who began delivering meals for Uber Eats in 2020 before signing up to perform passenger trips in 2022.
Early complaints included riders alleging “inappropriate questions”, that he was driving while using his phone, going more than 20km/h over the limit and tailgating.
In another complaint, a passenger alleged sexually inappropriate remarks and said their ride was “extremely uncomfortable and his behaviour towards me was extremely unacceptable”.
In September 2023, a rider complained of a road-rage incident, harsh braking and driving 130km/h in a 100km/h zone. “Putting my life in danger for pure stupidity,” they said.
Responding, the driver told Uber this rider was drunk and accused the customer of trying to “disrespect me” and making a claim about not being welcome in Australia.
In January 2024, a rider complained he was on his phone and distracted from the road and “so bumped into the car in front as it had stopped at a stop sign”. The passenger did not give more information. The driver denied any incident had occurred.
In April 2024, another rider complained he was “misogynistic and rude and refused to take us”. “He kicked us out in the rain and told us to f--- off,” the customer said. Afterwards, he told Uber the rider had booked just one seat in a shared “Pool” trip but had been wanting to enter with a friend too. Uber considered this incident “resolved”.
Shortly after, a rider complained the driver “touched them without their consent” and asked them to move to the front seat while stopped to get petrol. Uber immediately barred his account while investigating. He denied the allegations, and when he asked for information about the trip and complaint, said it could not disclose details due to its privacy policy.
His Uber account was reactivated days later. The FWC later found no evidence that Uber attempted to speak with the rider for more evidence.
He was also accused of verbally abusing passengers several times and asking a passenger to cancel a trip so he could drive them off-app and accept a cash transfer, all of which he denied to Uber at the time.
In February 2025, a rider complained he asked her “weird personal questions” that made her feel unsafe. These included “suggestive comments of a sexual or romantic nature” as well as asking for their social media details, their phone number, what they were wearing and what clothing size they were, and if he could take them out on a date and pay for dinner. He denied acting inappropriately.
Then, in May 2025, a rider accused him of deserting them on the side of the road before their final stop and “making racist remarks and driving very unsafe”. “I was scared and felt very unsafe. He should not be driving Uber,” they complained.
Uber, which posted $2.1 billion in gross profit in Australia in 2025, did not inform the driver of this individual complaint but, days later, suspended his app access and issued a final deactivation notice shortly after.
Commissioner Oanh Thi Tran shot down Uber’s defence of its decision to deactivate his account, finding that instead of complying with its evidentiary onus to prove the conduct took place and enquire with complainants, Uber relied instead on the repeated, similar nature of complaints – despite marking several of these matters as “resolved” at the time.
“I acknowledge Uber has concerns about providing identifying information to workers, but the generality of the information provided about the complaints makes it extremely difficult for a person to properly respond,” Tran found.
Instead of passenger testimony, complaints of dangerous driving and speeding were tested against Uber’s trip data and Google Map estimates, which Tran was not satisfied proved the allegations.
She was also scathing of Uber requiring the driver to challenge his deactivation internally via an automated chatbot and not a real person. “The responses from Uber are nonsensical,” Tran found upon reading them as evidence.
Tran ultimately ordered Uber to reinstate the driver and agree on lost pay for the period of almost a year he was forced off the app, noting he was his household’s primary income source.
