Taxi and courier firm Addison Lee has lost a legal battle over the employment status of one of its couriers after the London Central Employment Tribunal ruled that bicycle couriers should be classes as workers and are entitled to all the rights of a worker.

Chris Gascoigne, who worked for Addison Lee as a courier, brought the claim for £800-worth of holiday pay. He claimed he had been treated as a worker, and that he should have been entitled to the same rights as a worker, which includes benefits such as the national minimum wage and holiday pay, however Addison Lee said Gascoigne was an independent contractor.

“As if we needed any more evidence, this judgment once again proves our point. The law is clear and employers in the so-called ‘gig economy’ have been choosing to unlawfully deprive their workers of rights,” Jason Moyer-Lee, general secretary of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), said. The union had supported Gascoigne’s case.

“Yet another domino has fallen with regard to the inevitable conclusion that people in the so-called ‘gig economy’ are workers,” Moyer-Lee said.

According to the Guardian, judge Joanna Wade had focused on how Gascoigne had been provided with an Addison Lee branded bag and t-shirt, answered to a central controller, and used Addison Lee IT devices, including a system which did not have a ‘decline’ button when it offered him a job.

A spokesperson for Addison Lee stated, “We note the tribunal's verdict, which we will carefully review. Addison Lee is disappointed with the ruling as we have always had, and are committed to maintaining, a flexible and fair relationship with cycle couriers. This is a single judgment based on one pushbike courier and the circumstances of his particular relationship with Addison Lee in March 2016."

The case is similar to the Uber case last year in which two Uber drivers challenged their employment status and were ruled as workers rather than contractors. The ruling also follows the recently published Taylor Review which examined modern employment practices including the gig economy.