For years, Uber has deployed lobbyists to world capitals to guard its enterprise mannequin. Its legal professionals have argued that Uber drivers are impartial contractors, utilizing a service that connects them with individuals who want rides. Uber? It’s only a tech firm matching clients with enterprise individuals.

For a very long time, that argument labored. Now, following a UK Supreme Court docket choice, Uber has shifted, saying it’ll deal with its UK drivers as employees. That uncommon employment class—used within the UK—entitles drivers to minimal wage ensures after bills, paid holidays, and pension contributions, but drivers is not going to be staff. Only a few weeks in the past, Uber had insisted that the case solely utilized to a handful of employees. The brand new coverage is not going to apply to employees for Uber Eats, the corporate’s rising supply service.

“It’s a fairly vital U-turn, not solely on Uber’s stance up to now decade but its stance for the reason that Supreme Court docket judgment,” says Paul Jennings, an employment and discrimination lawyer with the agency Bates Wells, which represented a gaggle of Uber drivers within the case that made it to the Supreme Court docket. The UK is answerable for 6.four p.c of the corporate’s ride-hailing enterprise. Following the information, Uber shares have been down by four p.c on Wednesday afternoon.

But Uber’s announcement is way from a clear win for drivers, and can possible immediate extra authorized wrangling, within the UK and elsewhere. It additionally exhibits how Uber more and more is pushing for recognition of a “third class” of labor, offering gig employees with some conventional employment protections, but falling effectively beneath these offered to staff.

As UK employees—but not staff—drivers is not going to have entry to sick pay, parental depart, or day off for emergencies, they usually’ll have fewer protections in opposition to unfair dismissal. Within the US, the place employees are both staff or impartial contractors, those that aren’t staff don’t have entry to employer-paid medical health insurance or to enterprise expense compensation, like automobile upkeep and fuel.

Within the UK, Uber’s new coverage comes with a further large caveat: The minimal wage applies solely to the time drivers spend selecting up or driving passengers, but not the time they spend signed into the app and in search of rides. That point accounts for a large chunk of drivers’ working hours. Drivers concerned within the Supreme Court docket case estimate UK Uber drivers spend 40 to 50 p.c of their time in search of new fares; a current research of ride-hail drivers in Seattle discovered that drivers spend 36 p.c of their time ready for rides.

In consequence, Uber’s minimal wage is porous, argues Mark Graham, a professor of web geography on the Oxford Web Institute and the director of the Fairwork Basis, a analysis and advocacy group targeted on gig work. “You would not go to a restaurant and anticipate a waiter to solely be paid when bringing you meals, or employees in a retailer to solely be paid when there are clients within the retailer,” he says. “It’s undoubtedly factor that now Uber is considering minimal wages. But they’re occupied with them in a restricted approach that may enable employees to fall beneath” the usual.

It’s additionally unclear how Uber will compensate its UK drivers for bills. A spokesperson for the corporate didn’t instantly reply to questions.

Uber’s method to paying drivers within the UK echoes Proposition 22, the California poll measure that Uber and different gig corporations spent greater than $200 million to advertise final 12 months—and which voters accredited soundly. That regulation requires gig corporations to pay transportation and supply employees 120 p.c of the native minimal wage, but just for the time they spend on a visit. Proposition 22 additionally requires gig corporations to contribute to accident insurance coverage, employees’ compensation, and a well being care subsidy, but just for drivers who drive a sure variety of hours every week.