Is the Fairwork Ratings on Gig Workers' Condition a Wake-up Call

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Is the Fairwork ratings on gig workers' condition a wake-up call?

The gig economy made itself known during the pandemic. The recent Fairwork ratings highlighted how well or poorly these workers of unorganized sectors were being treated by companies.

The ubiquitous foot-soldiers of India’s thriving internet economy are discontented. We’re talking about your Ola/ Uber cab drivers and Swiggy/ Zomato delivery partners. Some of them are now tasked with delivering your bread and milk in just 10 minutes! But as a recent report by the Fairwork Foundation, in collaboration with the Oxford Internet Institute has found the earnings of these app-based platform workers or gig workers in India have declined over the last two years. That’s owing to the withering of incentives offered by companies and a reduction in take-home earnings due to a surge in out-of-pocket expenses.

The Fairwork India Ratings 2021: Labour Standards in the Platform Economy, now in its third year of publication, serves as an indictment of the work conditions for this growing class of unorganized workers. This year, the report ranks 11 Indian startups which engage contract gig workers. It scores them out of 10, based on their performance against five principles, namely:

Fair Pay, Fair Conditions, Fair Contracts, Fair Management, and Fair Representation.

Notably, Ola’s score has come down from 2/10 in 2020 to zero in 2021. This is, at a time, when it has become notoriously difficult to get a cab driver to accept your ride request on the Ola platform. Uber has also slipped from one to zero. And Urban Company, which topped the list in 2020 with a stellar score of 8/10, has slipped three points to five.

We reached out to Ola, Uber, and Urban Company to understand the reasons behind the fall in their scores, but didn’t receive any responses. So, we asked the lead investigator for Fairwork in India, Professor Balaji Parthasarathy.

The decline in Urban Company’s score has coincided with ongoing protests by its beauticians.