The passing of the Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023, by the Rajasthan Assembly on July 24 is a celebratory moment for gig workers and their unions. Rajasthan is the first State to pass such a law. This small win holds implications for such workers across India as pressure is now building on other States to bring platform workers under a similar social security net through targeted laws. With several elections around the corner, unions might see some more success on this front.
The Rajasthan Act covers platform workers and platforms such as ride-sharing, delivery, logistics, home-based services, e-retail, healthcare, travel, hospitality, content, and media services. A tripartite welfare board will be formed with representatives of the State government, workers, platform companies, and civil society. This board will oversee a welfare fund, register workers and platform aggregators/employers, monitor compliance, facilitate the proposed social security measures, and formulate insurance and social security schemes, among other functions.
The tripartite board is a workaround to deal with a situation where there is no direct legal employment relationship between worker and employer, explained Aditi Surie, a senior researcher with the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS). This is not a problem unique to India. Globally, platform companies obfuscate the employee-employer relationship by labelling workers as users, riders, delivery executives, partners, independent contractors, and so on.
In India, as elsewhere in the world, platform workers remain outside the purview of labour laws. Thus, even as skill levels across these companies vary, precarity is a constant, impacting over 77 lakh workers in India. That number is a NITI Aayog estimate (from its policy brief titled “India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy”, June 2022) and is expected to grow to 2.35 crore workers by 2030. Social security is thus indispensable. Workers, activists, and researchers acknowledge that the Rajasthan Act as a small win. However, it is not a panacea for all the issues the workers face.
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How can small social security allowances help when the workers face intense issues such as low wages, arbitrary blocking and changes in rules, and the complete control companies have over them, asked Rikta Krishnaswamy, the Delhi-NCR coordinator of the All India Gig Workers’ Union (AIGWU). Besides Krishnaswamy, Frontline spoke to over 20 workers and former workers from Urban Company, Swiggy, Zomato, Blinkit, Uber, and Ola to understand the long-standing issues relating to gig workers and their demands concerning work, wages, and social security. Most workers, fearing repercussions, wished to remain anonymous or only revealed their first names. Frontline emailed all the platform companies mentioned in this report but has not yet received responses.
The freedom and choice to design their work hours the way they want, and steady and substantial payouts are the two promises that attract most workers to platform companies. Several workers signed on so that they could work without the tensions of daily confrontations with a supervisor. However, most of them soon realise that things are not so rosy.
Ever-evolving exploitation
For years, 31-year-old Ankur (name changed) worked 12-14 hour days at least six days a week in the cleaning segment of Urban Company (UC). He commuted daily from Delhi to Gurugram, his assigned hub of work. On weekends and festivals, he had just about time to eat and sleep. Over the last few months, he has often ended his day with painkillers to cope with the long, back-breaking hours. The pressures of maintaining high performance ratings and making a living wage meant that he rarely found a moment to spend with his two sons.
The Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023
POWERS AND FUNCTIONS OF WELFARE BOARD
Then everything changed a few months ago when UC suddenly terminated his services. Ankur had met with an accident and he cancelled the day’s jobs to get medical treatment. He found the next day that his UC account was permanently blocked. “I called the management, met them several times, provided medical proof, but was told it was an irreversible automatic decision because I had cancelled more than five jobs that month,” Ankur told Frontline.
“ Precarity is a constant in platform-based work, and impacts over 77 lakh workers in India.”
Workers and unions allege that UC recently changed the minimum threshold of indicators it uses to evaluate a worker’s performance. Workers claim the new rules, imposed arbitrarily, require them to maintain a rating of at least 4.7 against the 4.5 previously accepted (calculated by averaging how customers rate workers out of 5); a response rate of over 70 per cent (the number of jobs they accept out of 100); and cancellations of no more than five jobs a month. The accounts of workers who could not meet the new requirements were blocked permanently.
On social media, AIGWU shared scores of instances of workers who were blocked because they could not meet the new requirements. Typically, workers do not accept jobs when they are involved in accidents, are recovering from health issues, or have to prioritise domestic work. Platform companies ignore such concerns and apply the rules mechanically.
The All India Gig Workers Union, which is affiliated to CITU, held protests in several cities on July 12, condemning the arbitrary terminations by Urban Company and rule changes that workers had not consented to. Here, at the protest in New Delhi. | Photo Credit: AIGWU
AIGWU, which is affiliated to CITU, held protests in several cities on July 12, condemning the arbitrary terminations by UC and the rule changes that workers had not consented to. Its demands included that the company unblock all workers, end the practice of permanent blocking, and eliminate multiple rating systems.
The issues are not unique to UC and are a consistent feature of all location-based platform work. Across platform companies, workers have to maintain an optimal rating (or multiple such ratings or indicators) to get enough rides, delivery orders, or assignments. The direct impact of these complicated performance assessment models is on workers’ incomes.
The performance evaluation metrics often drive workers into a frenzy to meet targets, take up as many jobs as possible, and not miss out on incentives. A delay of even a few minutes in delivering an order can lower a worker’s overall rating. This causes them to work longer hours to get the coveted rating back, which promises them a higher number of orders or a higher chance of incentives. The food and grocery delivery businesses, particularly, have seen high-speed driving, leading to accidents and even deaths at times. There is no consolidated data on this, but every worker knows someone who has met with an accident or knows of a death in their city.
Shaik Salauddin, a Uber driver turned activist, co-founded the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers and the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union. Seen here with cab drivers in the Old City of Hyderabad on February 11. | Photo Credit: NAGARA GOPAL
Frontline spoke to Shaik Salauddin, the national general secretary of the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and the president of the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union (TGPWU). During the interview, he shared screenshots that showed that in some companies even insurance coverage is tied to performance and ratings.
The ratings-based work model also normalises the customer’s control over workers and their wages. Customers sometimes do not give a rating of five because they “feel” that there is scope for improvement. Some customers get agitated even if asked for a good rating. Often, customers simply forget to rate the delivered order or service because they do not realise its importance.
PENALTIES ON PLATFORM COMPANIES
Mansi (name changed), an active UC salon worker, said: “Both workers and customers are susceptible to errors of judgment in how they behave. My main issue is that customers are rarely held accountable.”
Workers like Mansi used to once believe that work experiences such as these were based on chance but are beginning to realise that it is not. Platform companies have amassed extensive data, and many of the workers’ predicaments are by design. Workers find ways to understand the technology through peers or game the system by what they have learnt about it. However, before such attempts can proliferate, companies often bring in changes.
The algorithms and operations of platform companies are outside the purview of audits, and there is no transparency or accountability. Neither workers nor the government has any control over such evolving exploitation models.
“We need a policy-level decision for the audit of all these practices. There is no audit or transparency around the algorithms that decide workers’ wages,” said Suman Das Mahapatra, founding member of AIGWU.
Dwindling incomes and longer work hours
Platform companies often claim to have “disrupted” the market by eliminating middlemen, but they merely made themselves a tech-mediated middleman. Some companies charge workers a 15-25 per cent commission for every ride or service they facilitate on the app. There are other such opaque charges on workers’ earnings.
In UC, for instance, workers showed evidence of having to subsidise customer discounts. Some Zomato and Swiggy workers claimed that companies were not paying them the entire delivery fee. Workers of Uber and Ola said that fares had not increased commensurate with the rise in fuel prices. With the high commission rates, increasing fuel and operational costs, and other opaque charges, workers’ net incomes are falling or are stagnant in most companies. This has been happening for a while now.
RIGHTS OF PLATFORM-BASED GIG WORKERS
All workers have the right:
The ratings brought out by the Oxford Internet Institute’s Fairwork research project for 2022 noted that no platform company could commit to or provide evidence that “workers earn at least the local living wage after work-related costs”.
To make up for their dwindling incomes, workers put in longer work hours, making their already strenuous work much harder. Workers across companies shared screenshots of the hours they drive for orders, rides, or jobs. A delivery worker with Zomato had put in over 12 hours a day through the week. Another with Swiggy had put in 17-18-hour shifts. A UC chimney cleaner works 14 hours a day all week fearing that rejections might lead to arbitrary blocking. Most Uber and Ola drivers also average 12-14 hour work days. Additionally, companies do not compensate workers for the time spent driving between destinations or waiting outside restaurants or for the next assignment.
Experts say that there is also a labour oversupply in some platform companies, which has contributed to reduced earnings. “It is a race to the bottom for workers,” said Basudev Barman, an independent labour researcher.
The Centre for Labour Studie at the National Law School of India University of Bengaluru and the Montfort Social Institute of Hyderabad undertook a study of taxi drivers working with Ola and Uber in Hyderabad to assess their incomes and work conditions. The study estimated that on an average nearly 40 per cent of a driver’s income is spent on fuel.
A food delivery worker in Bhubaneswar in July 2021. Workers make a little extra money when it rains as companies incentivise such deliveries with additional pay. | Photo Credit: BISWARANJAN ROUT
All the eight food and grocery delivery workers Frontline spoke to felt that the monsoons were both a blessing and a pain. Rains ensure that workers make a little extra money as companies incentivise deliveries with additional pay. But they also run the risk of damaging their bikes on waterlogged roads or falling ill. Yet, most of them take the chance.
Rakesh works in Swiggy Instamart (the grocery delivery segment) and constantly drives with heavy loads on his back. He often faces defunct elevators and has to carry loads of up to 15 kg on his back. Once, he walked for a kilometre in waist-deep water when his motorcycle broke down, worrying about poor ratings and penalties. Such stories are the norm and not the exception.
When Samir, who has a bachelor’s degree, lost his job as a computer operator, he signed on as a food delivery worker. Now, he is fed up with the penalties, the poor incentives, and the stagnant income, but has no other option, given that he has multiple EMIs and a household to run.
Before he joined UC, Ankur was an underpaid apprentice for nearly one and a half years, then an underpaid assistant for another two and a half years. For Ankur, UC seemed to be the best bet. The fact that he could earn at least Rs.30,000 (commission and costs excluded) a month was enough to keep him working with the company despite the lack of downtime. “Acceptance of gig work is shown as the success of gig work, but in fact it shows the absolute failure of the state to ensure dignified employment,” said Krishnaswamy.
Workers’ issues concerning wages, incentives, or poor customer behaviour are often unresolved because of the subpar redress mechanisms in most companies. | Photo Credit: SRINIVAS KOMMURI
Workers’ issues surrounding, incentives, or poor customer behaviour often remain unresolved because of the subpar redress mechanisms in most companies. Companies, however, say that they have excellent mechanisms to help workers at all hours. That is not true, according to most of the workers Frontline spoke to. They find the chat-box, Google-form, and similar approaches for grievance redress frustrating. However, even when the mechanism fails, workers do not immediately pick up a placard and protest. Strike is not their first resort. That might be changing now.
Highlights
- In July, Rajasthan became the first State to pass a law that brings platform-based workers under a social security net and covers services such as ride-sharing, delivery, logistics, housekeeping, e-retail, healthcare, travel, and hospitality.
- This a welcome first step but cannot help workers with all the issues they are facing such as remuneration below the minimum wage, arbitrary changes in rules, subpar redress mechanisms, summary terminations, and long working hours.
- Although gig workers were earlier less likely to go on strike, in recent years, most app-based companies in India have faced strikes, with workers protesting against slashed rates or changes in incentives or other aspects that have contributed to their falling wages.
Unionisation and challenges
In recent years, most companies in India have faced strikes, with workers protesting against slashed rates or changes in incentives or other aspects that have contributed to their falling wages.
In February this year, Ola, Uber, and Rapido workers of Guwahati called a strike condemning dwindling incomes and increasing commission rates. The same month, hundreds of Ola and Uber cab drivers in Hyderabad protested near the airport to bring attention to high commission rates and tax deductions.
Ola and Uber cab drivers protesting at Freedom Park in Bengaluru on February 1, 2021. | Photo Credit: SUDHAKARA JAIN
In April, Zomato-owned Blinkit, an e-retail platform, slashed its per-delivery rate to Rs.15 and removed some incentives. Delhi-NCR workers responded with a call to strike, saying their incomes would be halved. Blinkit services took a hit, but the new payout stayed. There were protests against Swiggy in Chennai in May, and a strike by Ola and Uber workers in Hyderabad in June.
The response of most companies to protests often is to release an obfuscating statement or ignore them altogether. Fairwork’s India report noted that “platforms have been uncompromisingly unwilling to recognise or negotiate with any collective body”. In the July 12 nationwide protests by AIGWU, UC representatives refused to even accept the memo of demands. Companies often block workers’ accounts for participation in protests, which is one of the challenges unions face. In April, at least six workers from Delhi-NCR were blocked by a company after a newspaper forgot to anonymise them.
IFAT’s Salauddin showed Frontline dozens of screenshots from Hyderabad-based workers (from almost all platforms) who faced such repercussions. Some are blocked permanently, while others get a chance to retrain. Dunzo reportedly pre-emptively threatened to block workers. In an extreme instance in 2021, UC sued its workers.
Unionisation faces other challenges too. Workers who put in 12-14 days do not have enough time to join a union or are unaware of the union’s existence. Most of the platform workers Frontline spoke to said they connected with unions only when they failed to get any response from the platforms. Meanwhile, companies find news ways to thwart unions. A food delivery company recently hired a few key organisers among workers as entry-level managers, thus making the entire hub unreachable to the union.
Nevertheless, the resistance against platform companies has increased and become more organised. Unions such as AIGWU, TGPWU, and IFAT have upped their mobilisation and advocacy attempts and are now interacting with State governments on their grievances. The narrative has seen a definite shift, and there is more awareness today.
Mahapatra of AIGWU said that over the years, they had seen some success in Jharkhand and West Bengal, but it has been a mixed experience. “Until and unless we bring more workers into the union fold, it is tough to create some resistance,” he said. Meanwhile, individual workers continue to fall through the cracks because collective bargaining power continues to elude them.
The case for social security
In January, Mohammed Rizwan (23) was chased by a customer’s German shepherd while delivering a Swiggy order. Rizwan ran, fell from the third floor, and eventually succumbed to his injuries. “The customer agreed to pay Rs.5 lakh, deposited half, and will pay the rest after the case gets closed,” Rizwan’s father told Frontline. But Swiggy denied compensation since it had blocked him in 2022, and he was using his brother’s account to work. Rizwan’s father had hoped the company might act on humanitarian grounds, but in an email to the family, the company said that it “in no manner assumes any liability of the unfortunate accident”. The family cannot challenge it legally.
“Most app aggregators know the workers are operating through someone else’s account. They let it slide as long as it is convenient for them,” said Salauddin. Rizwan’s case could be an outlier, but the high risk of accidents or death is not. Shiva signed up as a Zomato driver after losing a job. She met with an accident a few months into the gig, lost six teeth, and spent over Rs.1 lakh for treatment. “Zomato followed up once but didn’t give any insurance,” Shiva said. She quit and went back to being a security guard.
“One of AIGWU’s demands is to ensure minimum wages (Rs.26,000 a month) for all platform workers. ”
Salauddin showed Frontline the countless chats he has had with workers whose claims were rejected. Even as platform companies claim to have improved their insurance processing, they routinely evade claims by citing reasons such as the app being offline when the accident occurred or the worker failing to follow standard operating procedures.
It is here, in the context of a lack of redress mechanisms for termination, health emergencies, accidents, or death that social security becomes vital. The Rajasthan Act is an attempt to remedy this. Salauddin, who participated in the consultations for the Act, wants other States to emulate the model.
In July, the new Karnataka government announced a life insurance and accidental insurance cover of Rs.2 lakh each for platform workers. However, this amount is lower than what even the platform companies are offering.
The need for labour laws and transparency
Experts point out that the narrow framework of social protection has only limited potential to impact the way these businesses engage with workers. Activists, researchers, and unions believe the government has to remedy the absence of regulation at the foundational level.
Broadly, what is needed is a regulatory framework to monitor the companies for algorithmic transparency and accountability regarding the work commissioned on the app, and to bring platform workers under labour laws, said Surie of IIHS. She pointed out that there was a monetary value to the data these apps collect from drivers, partners, and customers, but this value is not captured or calculated. Surie suggested that there be a way to assess or at least acknowledge this. Platform companies are not merely supporting drivers with tech (as they claim), but are profiting from the data collected.
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The labour researcher Barman suggested that interventions such as capping commission rates, transparency in payouts, and limiting the number of vehicles that can be operational in a city could be some ways to go ahead.
One of AIGWU’s demands is to ensure minimum wages (Rs.26,000 a month) for all platform workers, but this going to be arduous to accomplish. Elsewhere in the world, too, it has been hard to get a minimum wage for platform-based work. For instance, Doordash, Grubhub, and Uber recently filed lawsuits against New York City’s new law mandating a minimum wage. And in India, this will be especially difficult to negotiate given the growing unemployment, lobbying pressures, and its turbulent political economy.
The upcoming elections might result in some more welfare-related assurances for workers. But as long as the platform companies operate in a relatively deregulated space, resolving the long-standing problems of workers will remain a pipe dream.
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