More hours and less wages reality of platform workers: Experts

While gig work and platform work are often used interchangeably, given the reduced flexibility available for location-based platform workers compared to online gig workers, looking at both through the same lens results in misclassification and confusion, said the experts

The percentage of workers who earn a minimum wage through platforms like food delivery apps, taxi aggregators and hyperlocal service providers has gone up in the last four years. But the number of workers who had to put in increased working hours in order to get minimum wage has also substantially gone up during the period, said Balaji Parthasarathy, Principal Investigator for the Fairwork project in India and professor at IIIT-B.

Speaking at a seminar organised by the Centre for Labour Studies, NLSIU, he said, “Out of the 1,318 platform workers we spent time with over the last four years, only 21.8% were earning the local minimum wage after accounting for costs like fuel, vehicle maintenance and so on…The number of workers who had to put in more than 48 hours a week in order to make minimum wage went up from about 60% to about 84%.”

He also criticized the NITI Aayog report, which termed gig work as part-time work, and wondered how could work that came to more than 12 hours a day be ‘part-time.’

Mr Parthasarathy pointed out that platform companies control several aspects of the work challenging the notion of ‘flexible work.’

“The goal has been not to advocate classifying platform workers as employees in an employer-employee relationship. Workers do want flexibility. But what we’re really speaking to do is to reduce the acute social asymmetry that has come to characterize the work in the platform economy.”

Gig and platform workers not same

While gig work and platform work are often used interchangeably, given the reduced flexibility available for location-based platform workers compared to online gig workers (graphic designers, content creators and so on), looking at both through the same lens while framing policies result in misclassification and confusion, said the experts.

“Platform companies have created the apps, and they have, in their own terms, onboarded workers. This doesn’t amount to flexible gig work because the workers are forced to work for a certain duration, their work is constantly monitored, and there are many such compulsions,” said Vinay Sarathy, President of the United Food Delivery Partners Association. He pointed out that the terms have been used interchangeably even in the Social Security Code 2020.

He noted that while there should be equal pay for equal work, the platforms provide different rate cards and insurance schemes for workers

“When the rate card is changed, they are simply notified in the app. There are no dialogues or conversations unlike in a factory where a tripartite meeting would precede such decisions,” he said.

Lowest-paid sector

According to Mohan Mani, a visiting fellow with CLS, “the platform worker is a part of the organized sector who gets informal wages.”

Mani, who has done in-depth studies with food delivery workers, pointed out that the net earnings of platform workers are lesser than the least paid formal worker in Karnataka. On top of it they also don’t get benefits such as gratuity or bonus, he said.

Noting that the platform workers do high-intensity work, compromising their health for low earnings, he said that social security for them should cover aspects of both universal healthcare and contributory savings based on the earnings of the worker and transactions.

Not consulted

The Karnataka government published the draft Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Bill, 2024, earlier this year, inviting feedback from stakeholders. The bill, following opposition from industry bodies such as NASSCOM, was not placed in the assembly.

Babu Mathew, a professor at NLSIU, noted that CLS had prepared a bill and submitted it to the government of Karnataka much before the draft.

“Even after this bill was given to government sources, they had 42 meetings with aggregators. They did not invite us to any of those meetings. That is the background in which the law in Karnataka is being attempted,” he criticized.

Gender equality

Roopa Madhav, former professor at National Law University Delhi, noted that gender is a key element that should be considered while thinking about social insurance and social protection.

“Within platform workers, the conversation is largely about male workers. We have rarely looked at female workers. There is a sizeable female population that is entering these domains,” she pointed out.

Published - November 17, 2024 07:35 am IST