No company better epitomises the so-called “gig economy” than minicab firm Uber. All the key ingredients are there: the company uses an app, the drivers work flexibly – indeed, they can turn the app on and off at will – the drivers are paid per job, and the company denies them the employment rights to which they are legally entitled. Following the loss of its appeal on Friday, that might be about to change.

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There has been much debate about how to regulate such jobs in order to protect the people doing them. This culminated in the Taylor review’s 116 pages of predominantly vacuous fluff, legal inaccuracies and less than helpful suggestions. However, what the many recent tribunal decisions have shown is that the couriers and private hire drivers who provide the labour for Britain’s on-demand economy are already entitled to employment rights under UK law; their rights have simply not been enforced.

Despite the abundance of reporting to the contrary, the employment tribunal challenges to the likes of Uber, CitySprint and Deliveroo have not been about whether or not the workers in question were self-employed. For as the supreme court has made clear, and as has been repeated ad nauseum by lower courts and tribunals, the law recognises two types of self-employed people. The first type are micro-entrepreneurs or professionals contracting with clients or customers. The second type – known as (Limb b) workers – carry out their work as part of someone else’s business rather than their own, and as such are entitled to a number of employment rights such as holidays, minimum wage and pensions contributions.

What the “gig economy” companies have therefore been arguing is that the Uber driver runs his own transportation services business and the Deliveroo rider runs her own small food delivery business. So the common cliches regurgitated by “gig economy” bosses every time they lose a case, that the drivers and riders like being self-employed and having flexibility, are irrelevant. Neither self-employment nor flexibility is lost as a result of the tribunal cases.

Last October Uber was the first of the recent high-profile dominos to fall, losing a case in the employment tribunal that its drivers were workers. In one line that effectively sums up the essence of the case, the judge said: “The notion that Uber in London is a mosaic of 30,000 small businesses linked by a common ‘platform’ is to our minds faintly ridiculous.” Rather than taking the opportunity to provide its drivers with the basic rights it had been denying them, Uber chose to appeal against the ruling.

For passengers concerned the claims have contributed to Uber losing its licence, the procedures are completely separate

The appeal, in which test claimants James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam were backed by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), was heard in September. In a shift of emphasis, Uber at this stage ran an argument which deserved a five-star rating for its ludicrousness: that Uber was nothing more than an agent, acting in the best interests of the drivers, and was simply putting them in touch with customers. On Friday the employment appeal tribunal unsurprisingly upheld the earlier decision that Uber drivers were workers. In the long-shot hope that the third time will be the charm, Uber has already announced that it will appeal once more.

For passengers concerned that the employment claims against Uber have contributed to the company losing its licence in London, I can assure you the two procedures are completely separate. Despite our best efforts to get Transport for London (TfL) and the mayor to use their considerable influence to ensure private hire companies respect workers’ rights, TfL does not appear particularly interested. Indeed, by their own account, workers’ rights had nothing to do with the decision to revoke Uber’s licence. Nor would revoking the licence be the best way to ensure workers’ rights in any case.

Despite the bizarre proposition by some that announcing the imminent redundancy of 40,000 low-paid predominantly minority ethnic workers is a victory for workers’ rights, the greatest irony is that of all the companies in the “gig economy”, Uber is the one closest to ensuring these rights. If its appeal is heard by the supreme court in February, as Uber desires, then in early 2018 the matter will be finalised. Assuming we win, Uber will have no choice but to provide basic protections. The same cannot be said for other companies in the notoriously exploitative courier and private hire industries whose legal challenges are years behind, or much less for those companies who are yet to be challenged at all in tribunal.

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Friday’s appeal tribunal decision is consequential for all in the “gig economy”, not because it represents a major change but rather because it reinforces what we already know: the fundamental problem of employment rights is a lack of enforcement of existing law – not any need for some special new status. If we want the abuses to stop then there needs to be rigorous government enforcement of the law and fines large enough to deter unlawful behaviour.

The fact that despite all the recent tribunal decisions companies in the sector continue to deny workers paid holidays and the minimum wage further attests to the total impunity with which they have been allowed to act. As one can’t imagine the Tory government will suddenly start proactively protecting workers’ rights, the IWGB will continue to hold these companies to account by challenging them in tribunal. When enough dominos fall, justice will rise.

• Jason Moyer-Lee is the general secretary of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain