Aadesh Ramadorai
‘Equality and Decency of work are the pillars of sustainable development’ – Deborah Greenfield, Deputy Director General of the International Labour Organization.
Gig/ Platform workers are on demand workers who work with companies like Swiggy, Zomato, Uber, etc. These workers aren’t regarded as employees but are instead treated as ‘independent contractors,’ which means they do not work under the company per se and are hence not entitled to benefits like insurance, overtime incentives, gratuity, promotion, etc.
Recently, the sole benefit enjoyed by gig workers, i.e. meagre earnings has been curbed when these companies have greatly reduced the money per order/ ride. In spite of laying off over 6000 workers citing the pandemic, Swiggy and Zomato have reduced the wage per order from Rs. 35 to Rs. 15. Consequently, platform workers are now made to risk their lives and intern the health of their families for negligible remuneration with no form of insurance or sick leave.
Regions across the globe like France and California have amended their laws to recognize the rights of gig workers, but the framework in India is still defective. Article 19(1)(a) of The Constitution of India and Section 22 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 deal with the ‘right to strike,’ but it is unclear whether this right extends to independent contractors as well or is only given to employees.
Nonetheless, none of several strikes instigated by platform worker groups have yielded fruitful results. In fact, in October 2018, Uber responded in a hostile manner to such a strike by reducing the wage per fare from Rs. 8 to Rs. 6/km instead of increasing it to Rs. 12/km as demanded in the strikes. Furthermore, the Draft Labour Code on Social Security, 2019 recognizes the rights of gig workers, but the same has not been implemented yet.
Oxford University’s Fairwork Project Report titled ‘Quartz India’ ranked companies on principles of fairness of pay, conditions, contracts, etc. and of a total score of 10, Ola & Uber scored two, UberEats scored two and Zomato scored four. They were criticized for ludicrously unjust contracts, sparse wages and horrible working conditions.
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