UBER drivers stepped out of their cars yesterday in protest against commission increases that will leave the controversial firm’s employees £50 worse off every month.

Drivers are being charged a new levy of 25 per cent, while the tech giant’s mass recruitment ahead of Christmas is threatening the jobs of many of the company’s longer-serving staff.

Outside Uber’s London headquarters, dozens of drivers represented by the GMB union demanded better pay and job safety.

GMB professional drivers representative James Farrar told the Star that the protest was “really heartening” due to the tough conditions many of those attending were working under.

He said: “To make a call about the unfairness of Uber to drivers and ask these guys to show up, under the fear they might be deactivated, they might lose their jobs, the fact that they shook off those fears and came here anyway shows three things.

“One, the spirit that these guys have and their determination.

“Two, their absolute courage. And three, the absolute need for something to be done.”

In the past 12 months, Uber drivers have had their journey fares lowered twice and their salary, allowing for deductions, squeezed to just over £5 an hour.

Uber driver for the last six months Abdul Shah said the rise “is going to be detrimental to drivers’ livelihoods because they are already struggling.

“They are doing 60 to 90 hours a week and they are basically earning peanuts for it.”

Mr Shah, who had only heard of GMB a week before the protest, joined the union on the day “because they are a very credible organisation and they are the true voice and representatives of Uber drivers,” he said.