We know Uber is exploitative and underhanded. But this is a new low

Navigating the Fair Work Commission's yearly decisions on the minimum wage, which from July 1 rose by 3.75 per cent, is part and parcel of running a business.

Except, apparently, for Uber. Australia's largest ride sharing platform - which considers the country the "crown jewel" of its business - has sought to inoculate itself by ensuring drivers are paid less for the same work.

As cost-stretched Australian entrepreneurs and risk-takers struggle to balance the books, Uber - on instruction from its corporate HQ in San Francisco - found a workaround. Despite trying to spin this as a win for consumers, the lowering of fares is simply another way to cut labour costs and juice its offshore profits.

This is a foreign company that admittedly entered Australia's market illegally, profiting off the below-minimum wages of its workforce.

That it is willing to slash the pay of drivers further during a cost-of-living crisis should appall every fair-minded Australian.

This is not just bad for workers.

It undercuts every single Australian business owner who does the right thing by their staff and complies with the law.

It is in the interests of businesses to do right by their workers by creating good jobs with decent career trajectories while offering genuine flexibility.

The federal government's industrial relations reforms will come into effect next month and most businesses are getting on with the job of compliance, not inventing cynical work-arounds and loopholes.

Meanwhile, the gig economy continues to shift all the risk onto workers it treats as dispensable.

Platforms that are working to circumvent regulations do not contribute to state coffers through payroll taxes. They pay no super or workers' compensation.

Operators like Uber are piggybacking off the risks taken by small businesses in Australia. Take restaurants, for example, unable to compete financially unless they pay the onerous overheads and sign-up fees charged by food delivery giants.

It is past time for businesses to start calling out these platforms' exploitative and underhanded behaviour.

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Evolving technology, shifting consumer habits and expectations have always required business to innovate. Flexible work has become increasingly important, but it cannot be a back door to subminimum wages and dangerous working conditions.

Rideshare giants often present themselves as a model for this new paradigm; as great innovators surfing the waves of change.

But we all need to recognise that this model is an anachronism - a capital-labour relationship from the 19th century - being cynically rebranded as a template for the future.

Businesses and workers have a mutual interest in ensuring the excesses of the gig economy do not metastasise.