Uber drivers have the same employment rights as other full-time employees in Britain, a court has ruled in a landmark decision which looks likely to send shockwaves through the nation’s so-called “gig economy.”

The ruling means that drivers are now entitled to earn the national minimum wage, holiday pay, sick pay, and other benefits, after the San Francisco-based taxi firm lost a case brought against them by two drivers backed by the GMB union. Uber had argued that it was a tech firm rather than a transport one, and that as its drivers were self-employed contractors it was not obliged to provide the kinds of statutory employment rights full-time workers would expect.

According to the GMB, the Central London Employment Tribunal’s decision will have ramifications in other industries which rely on casualised labour, and that “similar contracts masquerading as bogus self employment will all be reviewed.”