Brazil's Public Labor Prosecutor's Office (MPT) has filed a civil lawsuit against Uber Brazil seeking to suspend the "Passe para Motoristas" (Driver Pass) program, which charges drivers a fee to be able to accept rides through the app. The office is also demanding reimbursement of amounts already paid by drivers and 321 million reais, roughly 60 million dollars, in damages for collective moral harm.

Launched on May 25 this year in 12 Brazilian cities, the program lets drivers buy a pass valid for a set period, either 24 or 72 hours, or a pass tied to earnings, under which a driver pays a fee upfront and is exempt from per-ride service charges until reaching a set revenue cap. According to the MPT, fees can exceed 1,000 reais, about 190 dollars, a month, depending on the plan and how often a driver works.

The core problem, prosecutors say, is that drivers must pay in advance for access to the program's terms with no guarantee they will get enough rides to recoup the cost. Citing Uber's own terms of service, the MPT says the company acknowledges that buying a pass does not guarantee a minimum number of trips, and that the app's algorithm can still route rides to drivers who have not joined the program.

Prosecutor cites debt bondage structure

Labor prosecutor Luiz Antonio Nascimento Fernandes, who filed the case, argues the mechanism can trap drivers in economic dependence on the platform. He says that when a driver's balance runs low, future earnings can be automatically withheld to settle the debt with the company.

The Pass charging mechanism creates an objective structure of permanent indebtedness: a driver without sufficient balance has future earnings automatically and fully withheld by the defendant. This mechanism perpetuates the worker's economic dependence on the platform and replicates, in the digital environment, a debt bondage structure, Fernandes wrote in the filing, according to G1.

The MPT also argues the program may work as a form of indirect loyalty lock-in, since drivers have less incentive to work for competing apps while they have already paid for a pass. Beyond suspending the program, the office requested access to the source code of Uber's algorithm to examine how rides are distributed, how prices are set, and how much drivers actually receive.

Ilan Fonseca, the MPT's national coordinator for combating labor fraud, called the fee abusive and said it could amount to conditions analogous to slavery, a possibility that will be examined during the case. In almost every country in the world, there is a rule barring companies or agencies from charging employees for access to work, Fonseca said, according to G1. In a statement, Uber denied the allegations and said it will present the necessary information to the court to explain how the program works, describing it as an alternative, still in testing, to the traditional per-ride fee model. The company also noted that the judge handling the case, identified by InfoMoney as Luciano Carreiro of the 9th Labor Court of Salvador, called for caution in weighing the prosecutors' claims, which still need to be investigated.