A former top lobbyist for Uber says the firm wilfully ignored local regulations when it began operating in Switzerland in 2013.
By choosing to act first and apologise later in implementing its gig-economy model, Uber “massively undermined” democracy in many countries, including Switzerland, former lobbyist Mark MacGann told Tamedia newspapers on Saturday.
MacGann was Uber’s chief lobbyist in Europe between 2014 and 2016 before leaving and later becoming a whistleblower; last year he was at the source of the large-scale “Uber files” investigation published by British newspaper The Guardian.
He says Uber knew of the Swiss rules on social security payments and employment law, but chose to “discard them”. The company knew it would only be profitable if it followed the model of drivers as independent workers, rather than drivers as registered and protected employees, MacGann said.
In a long investigation published on Saturday, the Tamedia newspapers also report on the large PR campaign rolled out by Uber to promote its business model to local politicians, officials, journalists, scientists and even police officers.
Uber told the newspapers that it was aware it had made mistakes in the past, and that it would not try to justify them. However, in recent years its practices have “radically changed” in order to adapt to Swiss regulations.
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