A tough gig

Although people working in the gig economy in India were hoping to be granted new social security benefits and see the introduction of a legal minimum wage for gig workers in the Union Budget for 2023-24, the financial allocation to the Labour Ministry and for its social security schemes actually fell in the Budget. The allocation to the Ministry of Labour and Employment was cut from ₨16,893.68 crore in the last Budget estimates to ₨13,221.73 crore in 2023-24.

As a result, trade unions have alleged that the Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has failed to address the issue of long-term employment and the creation of quality jobs.
In fact, funding for several social security schemes for workers actually decreased in this Budget. The Bima Yojana for Unorganised Workers, which saw an allocation of ₨10 lakh in the last Budget, has been stopped.

Photograph iStock credit lakshmiprasad

Amarjeet Kaur, general secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), said the Budget addressed none of the real issues concerning working people. “Trade unions have been demanding Old [Age] Pension Scheme, social security to all, pension to all, regularisation of schemed workers, minimum wages for workers of unorganised sector,” she said.

“This is a Budget that leaves behind the interests of the nation, its 94 per cent unorganised workforce who contribute 60 per cent of the GDP.”

Kaur added that the Budget failed to address the important challenges of creating long-term employment and quality jobs.

KE Raghunathan, founder-chairman of the Association of Indian Entrepreneurs, told The News Stuff: “All these delivery boys and gig workers, 10 years later, when they become 35-years-old or become unhealthy of doing these jobs, they will be thrown away.

“Because, for these delivery workers, all they know is how to operate Google maps and how to check and deliver or pick up the orders.

“Machines are created to help humans but unfortunately, now humans are helping machines,” he told The News Stuff. “We are seeing that the machines have started to do skill-based jobs. We are pushing people to listen to the machines. Is this acceptable for a country like India where over 60 per cent of people are earning a low income?

“This government must think about it. The young workers these days are spending more on health as they face tensions, stress and various illness.”

Working for app-based services
The term ‘gig worker’ refers to those engaged in any income-generating activity as freelancers or on a temporary basis. These workers mainly work for app-based services.

However, in the recently published Fairwork India Ratings 2022 report, which rates the working conditions of the country’s app-based workers against five principles of ‘fair work’, five digital labour platforms – cab aggregators Ola and Uber, grocery delivery app Dunzo, pharmacy platform PharmEasy and Amazon Flex – scored zero points out of 10.

According to Fairwork – a campaign group that aims to highlight the best and worst practices in the platform economy globally – none of the 12 platforms in India analysed against the group’s defined principles of ‘fair work’ scored more than seven out of the maximum possible 10 points.

Home services platform Urban Company ranked the highest with seven points, followed by online grocery shopping platform bigbasket with six. Walmart-owned e-commerce firm Flipkart and food aggregator platform Swiggy scored five, food delivery company Zomato four, 10-minute grocery delivery app Zepto two and logistics startup Porter one.

Fairwork assessed the platforms against five principles: fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management and fair representation. Each principle is further broken down into two points: a first point and a second point that can only be awarded if the first point has been achieved.

Under fair pay, the report found that only bigbasket, Flipkart and Urban Company had implemented and “operationalised” (begun to introduce) policies to ensure that all workers on these platforms earn at least the hourly local minimum wage after factoring in work-related costs. However, Fairwork says no platform provided sufficient evidence that workers do in fact earn at least the local living wage after work-related costs.

Bigbasket, Flipkart, Swiggy, Urban Company and Zomato were awarded the first point under ‘fair conditions’ for simplifying their insurance claim processes for workers involved in incidents like traffic collisions and assaults by the public, and for having operational emergency helplines for workers on the platform interface.

However, only bigbasket, Swiggy and Urban Company were awarded the second point under fair conditions for providing monetary support to workers when they are unable to work due to a medical illness, and ensuring that their standing on the platform is not affected when they return from a leave of absence due to medical illness.

Under fair contracts, seven out of the 12 platforms were awarded the first point for taking steps to ensure workers’ contracts are accessible, readable and comprehensible (including the provision of multi-lingual agreements); and for giving notice before making changes to workers’ terms of engagement. These were bigbasket, Flipkart, Swiggy, Porter, Urban Company, Zepto and Zomato.

Also, six of the platforms, bigbasket, Flipkart, Swiggy, Urban Company, Zepto and Zomato, met the second point under fair contracts for introducing a clause in worker agreements to allow for dispute resolution between workers and the respective platform.

Under fair management, bigbasket, Flipkart, Swiggy, Urban Company and Zomato were awarded the first point for having a grievance redressal process for dealing with workers’ grievances (including policies for preventing sexual harassment), and a functioning communication channel where workers can connect with a human representative of the platform, such as a WhatsApp group or another chat option.

However, Urban Company was the only platform to meet the second point under fair management. The company has instituted regular external audits to check for biases in its work allocation systems and adopted policies to prevent discrimination towards its workers (including discrimination towards workers from marginaised communities from customers using the platform).

However, no platform scored a point under fair representation, which assesses if platforms are willing to recognise or negotiate with a collective body of workers, like a trade union; that freedom of association among workers is not inhibited; and workers to have a say in the conditions of their work.

The report states: “Representation through a collective body or trade union is a vital dimension of fairness at work. It is disconcerting that despite the rise in platform worker collectivisation across the country, like last year, there was insufficient evidence from any platform to show willingness to recognise a collective body of workers.”

The Fairwork India Ratings 2022 combined desk research and worker interviews conducted in Bangalore, Delhi and Kochi, with evidence provided by the platforms.

“This year, no platform scored more than seven out of the maximum of 10 points, and none scored all the first points across the five principles,” the report said.

The Fairwork India Team is spearheaded by the Centre for IT and Public Policy (CITAPP) at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIITB), in association with Oxford University.

“Our hope is that platforms, consumers, workers and regulators will all use the Fairwork framework and ratings to imagine, and realise, a fairer platform economy in India,” stated Fairwork. “Based on the scores and findings, some platforms have already expressed an interest in creating better working conditions.

“Consumers can use these scores to make informed decisions when choosing which platforms to use. These scores can also add to the resources available to collective bodies of workers when they raise demands.”

Gig economy is rapidly expanding
Meanwhile, demand for gig workers in India increased ten-fold while the participation of gig workers in the economy rose by three times during 2022 compared to the previous year, according a new report by Taskmo, an online platform that connects businesses with pre-screened gig workers.

In addition, youth participation in the gig economy increased eight times between 2019–2022, said the report.

Meanwhile, research studies by Boston Consulting Group have indicated that participation in the gig economy is higher in developing countries, such as India, (five to 12 per cent) than developed economies (one to four per cent). The research found that most of the gig or platform jobs are lower-income types of work, such as deliveries, ridesharing, microtasks, care and wellness.

The gig economy is also predicted to continue to grow globally. For example, a recent report by Morgan Stanley estimated that 50 per cent of all global workers will participate in the freelance and gig economy in some capacity by 2027. 

India’s gig economy is currently estimated to employ 7.7 million people (2020-21 figures), though the number is predicted to nearly triple to 23.5 million by 2029-30, according to a 2022 report from the government’s official think tank, NITI Aayoga, India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy.

At present, about 47 per cent of gig workers are involved in medium skilled jobs, nearly 22 per cent in high skilled jobs and around 31 per cent in low skilled jobs. Trends show that the concentration of workers with medium skills is gradually declining, while the demand for low skilled and high skilled workers is increasing.

According to ASSOCHAM (Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India), India’s gig economy is projected to reach a value of $455 billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 17 per cent.

Meanwhile, a survey conducted by the jobs and professional networking platform Apna (which connects job seekers with employers) found that the participation of women from tier two cities in the gig economy has increased by 34 per cent.

The Apna report found there was an overall 36 per cent year-on-year rise in women users of the Apna platform from tier one, tier two and beyond cities, while 34 per cent of the female users of its platform took jobs such as drivers, delivery partners, lab technicians and factory workers. Companies like Paytm, Zomato, Rapido and Swiggy, among others, have been among the top partners posting the largest number of jobs for women on Apna in a bid to diversify their workplaces, said the report.

Photograph iStock credit lakshmiprasad

Social security schemes for gig workers in Rajasthan
Meanwhile, following suggestions by Rahul Gandhi, member of the Lok Sabha for Wayanad, Kerala and former president of the Indian National Congress, the Rajasthan government has decided to implement social security schemes for certain types of gig economy workers in the state.

In December 2022, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot said a new segment of the labour market has emerged where people work for e-commerce platforms but are exploited because they do not have permanent jobs. “Rahul Gandhi Ji has pointed this out and we’ll try to make some provisions for their social security in our upcoming budget,” the chief minister told the Free Press Journal.

Head of media at the Indian National Congress Party, and member of the Rajya Sabha for Karnataka, Jairam Ramesh said that around 60 per cent of app-based transport workers are Dalits, minorities and from deprived classes and rural or semi-urban areas.

“Rahul Gandhi has interacted with some organisations and [Ashok] Gehlot, and, as a result of this, Rajasthan will be the first state to implement social security schemes for app-based transport workers,” Ramesh told the Free Press Journal.

The Rajasthan government estimates that there are 225,000 to 270,000 gig workers in the state alone, around 50,000 of whom work for Ola and 35,000 for Uber.

Meanwhile, in recent months, amid harsh working conditions, rising instances of exploitation and job losses, gig workers have come together to campaign and form trade unions in a bid to secure better employment conditions, pay and social security rights. Last year, many Indian cities witnessed protests by gig workers, indicating rising demands for better conditions and wages. 

Social Security Code not yet enacted
The central government says the new Social Security Code 2020 will recognise gig and platform workers as a new occupational category, where there is no traditional employee/employer relationship, and will grant them certain social security benefits.

In a statement to Parliament in December 2021, the central government’s labour ministry said: “The code envisages various benefits for gig workers, including life and disability cover, accident insurance, health and maternity, old age protection, creche and other benefits.”

The labour ministry added that the new code will see the introduction of a social security fund for gig workers. According to the central government, the fund will be part-funded by a levy on the relevant app platforms of between one and two per cent of their turnover, up to a limit of five per cent of the amount paid or payable by an aggregator to such workers.

However, the code has yet to be implemented by the central or state governments, and campaigners say gig workers therefore remain at the mercy of app-based platforms infamous for demanding long hours in risky work environments.

The government has also drafted the Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines 2020, which are designed to ensure the health and safety of drivers who engage with multiple platforms (aggregators), such as taxi apps. According to Fairwork, once implemented, the guidelines will require platform aggregators to develop a mechanism on their respective apps to ensure drivers do not drive more than a cumulative period of 12 hours in a day.

However, Fairwork warns: “Even as instances of abuse and discrimination against platform workers have surfaced this year, the legal landscape of the platform economy in India remains largely unchanged.

“Members of Parliament have directed attention to the need for reform, yet the Code on Social Security and the Motor Vehicle Aggregator guidelines, 2020, both of which regulate the conditions of platform workers, await enforcement.”