Team Charcha
Organising Gig and Platform Workers – A Challenge
Resolutions Adopted by INTUC Working Committee Meeting
Arbitration Organising Gig and Platform Workers – A Challenge
The pandemic opened the door for gig workers across the globe and centre stage in India, changing the employment landscape in our country. The gig economy in India has grown significantly, boasting close to 15 million gig workers engaged in various roles such as delivery, cleaning, consulting, and blogging. Enabled by digital platforms, these jobs offer flexibility, allowing workers to engage with multiple contractors simultaneously and this number is expected to rise to 25 million by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of almost 12%. In general, gig workers are those engaged in hourly or part-time jobs in everything from catering events to software development.
Whereas a platform worker implies to a worker working for an organisation that provides specific services using an online platform directly to individuals or organisations. There is a lack of formal statistics and thereby no reliable data are available on the number of gig jobs created so far in India. Gig economy has evolved in a major way in urban India, and is providing employment to millions of migrant workers, and has the potential for generating more employment in the future. Gig workers are not identified as ‘workers’, and are thus not covered under the standard employee contracts. Payments for workers in these sectors are determined by the ‘gigs’ they perform and are directly affected by demand fluctuation. Challenges for the gig workers, like their inability to engage in collective bargaining, the lack of long term economic security, the safety and security at the work place etc.
Long working hours, earnings that fall short of meeting household expenses, arbitrary deactivation and blocking of identity (ID) by platforms and high physical and mental stress are among the major issues plaguing workers of the booming gig economy in India. This new world of the digital economy, workers in platform companies is still workers. They are not entitled to any rights like others and their need is for decent working conditions and pay, security and safety. Platform companies are expanding in a wide range of sectors, from transport and food delivery to retail, teaching care and domestic services. Many such services are longstanding and there is no reason why workers in these sectors should suddenly be treated differently. To defend them, trade unions need to be attractive and effective. It is a big challenge organising this fast growing skilled digital workforce as they are hard to be reached out.
Unions need to change the existing practice of their operations and discover new forms of recruiting new members in the context of the extremely low unionisation rate. Advocacy efforts by trade unions and policy changes are essential to guarantee that gig and platform workers receive the rightful protections and benefits they deserve. Trade unions need to make communication vital in the efforts to defend these gig/ platform workers, make social media and other digital tools as new opportunities for contacting and organising them.
The niche for unionisation in the gig economy might be small, but it keeps growing. With the changing legal landscape, better provisions for trade unions shall emerge and give gig workers a means for organising and mobilising, collective bargaining, strategic litigation and active involvement in policymaking. One of the major factors in the world of gig work is that platforms have unlimited access to data while the workers and unions have no or very limited access. Ways have to be devised and agreements have to be reached for data sharing between firms and unions. This would definitely help the unions in organising themselves better.
This needs definite and strong government intervention as the unions today are not in a position to negotiate with these firms. It is evident that the gig economy is here to stay and is only going to grow over time in India and across the world and hence it is mandatory that governments as well as international bodies come forward to regulate factors driving the gig economy and legislate accordingly to protect the interests of such workers. In today’s changing circumstances, the role of trade unions becomes all the more important and has a large role to play.
It is also the time for conversations within the unions for them to strategize on and prioritize how unions should organise themselves to stay relevant in the changing world of work. Ways of unionisation need to be improvised to include gig and platform workers in the larger labour movement. India will have to introduce and legislate fundamental labour rights specific to gig and platform workers.
The Central and state governments need to intervene and push for policy implementation to protect the gig and platform workers working in urban services, logistics, delivery and transportation sectors. It is evident that the gig economy is here to stay and is only going to grow over time in India and across the world and hence it is mandatory that governments as well as international bodies come forward to regulate factors driving the gig economy and legislate accordingly to protect the interests of such workers.
The Indian Worker
