An Uber Eats delivery driver took the company to the Fair Work Commission after his account was deactivated. Photo: Uber Eats.
An Uber Eats delivery driver lost his job due to his poor satisfaction ratings on the app, even though he said his bad scores were partly due to delays caused by major construction works in Civic.
The driver, whom Region has chosen not to name, worked in Canberra before his account was deactivated. He took the company to the Fair Work Commission, but Deputy President Lyndall Dean dismissed his application.
In a published decision, she said he began working for Uber in 2018 before he was sent a ‘low ratings education notice’ in February 2025 as his overall rating was 81 per cent.
These ratings come from customers, who review the quality of a driver’s work.
“Delivery people in Canberra have an average rating of 93 per cent. The target minimum rating in your city is 85 per cent and you are required to meet the minimum rating in your city to keep delivering with Uber Eats,” the company told him in the notice.
The driver’s rating fell to 76 per cent in March, prompting another warning. It rose slightly to 80 per cent by the end of May, but Uber suspended his account and warned he was at risk of deactivation.
“I’ve been delivering with Uber for a long time and truly enjoy it, but I work in Canberra city centre where there are constant challenges,” the driver said when writing to the company to request a review.
“One of the major issues right now is ongoing road work – different streets are blocked every day, which makes navigation and timing extremely difficult.”
Construction works for light rail Stage 2A, running from Civic to Commonwealth Park, began in February 2025 and have blocked major roads in the city’s centre and disrupted access to businesses.
Despite the driver’s pleas, Uber Eats told him it would terminate his access to the app that July.
“As your account has been deactivated, the creation of another account on the Uber platform will be considered fraudulent activity and is prohibited,” the company said.
At the Fair Work hearing, the driver claimed some circumstances were outside his control, such as poor packaging from restaurants, vague instructions from customers, the app’s frequent malfunctions and difficulties finding parking in Canberra’s centre.
Deputy President Dean said the driver argued the rating system was inflexible, arbitrary and a manifestly flawed means of policing the conduct of drivers, including because the 85 per cent minimum satisfaction rating was arbitrary. He said most customers did not give ratings at all.
He also claimed he was abused by customers numerous times and raised these incidents with Uber Eats, but never received any meaningful response.
But the FWC found Uber Eats had complied with the law as it sent him several warnings or notices before deactivating his account, and she accepted the 85 per cent minimum satisfaction rating was a legitimate threshold.
“[The company] is entitled to set standards and drivers agree to those standards when they decide to access the platform,” she said.
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