This is the real reason Just Eat and Uber are suddenly so keen on better perks for their workers

Regardless of the suspect motives of big companies on both sides of the Atlantic, says Hamish McRae, we urgently need to adapt labour legislation to the reality of changing work practices

Uber faces successive challenges from California to London that its drivers are really employees and should get full employment rights (PA)

One of the many unfair elements of the blow that coronavirus has done to our economies has been the impact on gig workers. For some (those delivering meals to homes, for example) there has been a boom in demand. But for most, from taxi drivers in the big cities to the vast swathe of people working in the entertainment and hospitality industries, it has been a catastrophe. The slow struggle back to the new normality will leave many behind.

But it is also an opportunity to rethink the job contract, and in particular to break down the barriers between full-time salaried employment and part-time self-employed work – making each fairer as a result.

Two examples from different sides of the Atlantic in the past few days show some new thinking as to how this might be done. In the US, Dara Khosrowshahi, the chief executive of Uber, has argued that gig economy firms should be required to create benefits funds to give workers cash they can use for perks they want, such as health insurance. In the UK, Jitse Groen, who heads Just Eat Takeaway, has gone further. He wants to bring the group’s gig workers in Europe on as staff over the next couple of years, and will then look at the position of workers in Grubhub, the US business that they have just taken over.