The National Coordination Committee on Gig Workers (NCCGW), an umbrella organisation of several unions working among gig and platform workers, on July 27 protested in front of Parliament and demanded the Centre for a model law for the sector so that these workers get social and job security.
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In their demand charter submitted to Union Labour Minister Bhupender Yadav, the NCCGW said about 12 million gig and platform workers are facing systematic exploitation, wage theft, illegal termination, mental torture and unfair labour practices at the hands of digital platforms. “These issues became unbearably severe during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, while we were providing essential services day in and day out to the country, at a great personal cost,” they said in the charter.
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They said the platforms do not recognise them as employees, yet they control every aspect of their work and exploit them without any accountability or proper redressal mechanisms, benefits or minimum wages. “This is true for all the platforms across sectors, including Zomato, Swiggy, Amazon, Urban Company, Ola, Uber, etc. Women gig workers, who are a sizeable part of the gig and platform workforce, face even more compounded issues, such as lack of access to toilets, discrimination against working mothers, and harassment and violence from customers,” the memorandum said.
“We demand to be recognised as workers,” they said adding that there is no pay transparency from platforms, nor any minimum guaranteed income. “They bleed money from us through credits, commissions, subscriptions, loans, penalties and fees, while we bear all the costs of products, maintenance, travel, and paperwork,” the memorandum said.
Platforms use black-box AI systems to deploy opaque employment decisions, such as changing the minimum cut-off rating resulting in mass terminations, they alleged. “They then avoid accountability for these decisions, pushing the blame on to the AI algorithms. We demand that all employment decisions and changes are explained to us and notified to us in advance. We demand that the humans within the platforms take responsibility for any adverse and unfair system changes,” they told Mr. Yadav.
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They also demanded that as workers are constantly under surveillance, their data must be made easily available to them at all times and at any time. “We demand the guarantee of basic benefits such as ESIC and PF as a large proportion of gig workers are working full-time for platforms and rely solely on them for livelihood,” they added.
Platform companies are arbitrarily and unfairly terminating a large number of gig workers without adequate reasons, while continuously recruiting new gig workers, the memorandum added and said every platform must set up a tripartite committee consisting of representation from gig workers, platform employers as well as government functionaries. “This board will identify and raise emerging issues on behalf of gig workers, and ensure that they are resolved in a fair manner,” they said.
