Companies such as Ola, Uber, and Amazon Flex may be strong companies in their own right, but they are far from being the ideal places to work when it comes to gig workers. In a recent report, which ranked companies based on the working conditions of gig workers as per the minimum standards of fair work, Ola, Uber, Dunzo, PharmEasy, and Amazon Flex were found to score 0/10 in the assessment.
According to its newly release Fairwork India Ratings 2022, which was compiled by research firm Fairwork India (in collaboration with the University of Oxford), the aforementioned companies failed to provide their gig workers with any fairness in regards to paying, contracts, management, representation, or working conditions – the five Fairwork principles against which the Fairwork team assessed evidence on 12 firms.
The other firms to be studied by Fairwork India as part of the study are BigBasket, Flipkart, Porter, Swiggy, Urban Company, Zepto, and Zomato. Out of the 12, Urban Company secured the greatest score – seven out of 10 – and was followed by BigBasket’s six points. Swiggy and Flipkart got five points each, food delivery aggregator Zomato secured four, and grocery delivery firm Zepto got two points. Porter got a solitary point.
Overall, the report found that platforms continue to be deaf to the concerns of workers and worker groups, who have “repeatedly emphasized” the importance of a stable income for gig workers. Not only were the firms unwilling to, with some exceptions, operationalize a minimum wage policy, but they also proved to be stubborn when it comes to recognizing and negotiating with collective bodies representing workers.
This reality comes at a time when workers in the gig economy continue to be crucial to the workforce. Additionally, their numbers have swelled in recent years as more and more individuals have become gig workers to supplement their income and juggle multiple jobs at different companies. However, even though they number in the millions in the country, they continue to be deprived of multiple employee benefits such as insurance. This proves beneficial to the firms, who exploit them to the fullest and pay these workers a commission only for the ‘gig’ completed, which results in gig workers threatening to go on strikes unless their conditions for better pay and work conditions are met.
When it comes to fair pay, BigBasket, Flipkart, and Urban Company made public commitments to pay gig workers at least the hourly local minimum wage, after factoring in work-related costs. Thus, they were awarded the first point by Fairwork, and they failed to earn the second one – which means that they failed to provide sufficient evidence that workers earn at least the local living wage after work-related costs.
The aforementioned three, along with Swiggy and Zomato, got the first point under Fair Conditions as well. The report informs that the point was awarded for simplifying their insurance claims processes and for having operational emergency helplines. Furthermore, BigBasket, Swiggy, and Urban Company secured the second point for implementing a loss of pay policy that provides workers with a financial safety net during medical illnesses.
None of the platforms scored a point for fair representation, while the aforementioned five firms secured the first point in fair management for having a grievance redressal process that can connect with a human representative. Only Urban Company got the second point for having regular external audits to check for biases in its work allocation systems and adopting anti-discrimination policies.
The five firms mentioned, along with Porter and Zepto, got the first point for having fair contracts for their gig workers, while Flipkart, Swiggy, Urban Company, Zepto, and Zomato further modified their contracts to reduce the asymmetry in liabilities and have a clause to resolve worker-platform disputes.
“The promise of the flexibility of the digital platform economy raises as many questions about livelihoods as it offers opportunities. We hope the Fairwork report provides the basis for an interpretation of flexibility that allows for not merely the adaptability that platforms seek, but also the income and social security that workers lack,” said Professors Balaji Parthasarathy and Janaki Srinivasan, the principal investigators of the team, in a statement.
