Express News Service
BENGALURU: Ola and Uber, two of the biggest ride-sharing companies in India, scored zero, while Flipkart got the highest rating of seven in providing good working conditions to their gig workers, revealed a recent study.
The report was prepared by Fairwork India as part of the Centre for IT and Public Policy (CITAPP), International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) and Oxford University. The study was taken up to highlight the working condition of gig workers across the country.
The report — ‘The Fairwork India Ratings 2021: Labour Standards in the Platform Economy’ — studied 11 platforms, Ola, Uber, Amazon, Zomato, Swiggy, Dunzo, BigBasket, Flipkart, PharmEasy, Porter and Urban Company.
The platforms were rated on a scale of ten on fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management and fair representation given to their employees. Ola, Uber and Porter, which is a moving services app, scored zero, while Flipkart got seven, which is the highest of all the platforms studied. But none scored across all criteria.
A point was given to each criterion if platforms satisfied basic conditions, like grievance redressal (management), minimum wage, accessible contract and others. Another point was given if the platforms went above the minimum requirements.
‘No formalised union for workers’
Onlyly Flipkart and BigBasket scored a point in providing minimum wage to workers, but they did not get any points on providing a living wage, which is over the minimum wage if workers could not sustain themselves and provide for their families.
Ola and Uber scored a zero, which meant that they did not pay minimum wages to their workers. Representatives of Ola and Uber did not react though TNINIE tried to contact them repeatedly.
Also, these companies do not have a policy to help workers in case of a risk to their health and safety, have not provided clear and accessible contracts, do not inform workers of loss of pay or changes in contracts, and have no formalised union for workers to voice their concerns and give suggestions.
“We reached out to all the platforms, but only some responded. There has been no response from Ola and Uber after we sent them the preliminary findings,” said Prof Balaji Parthasarathy, one of the principal investigators for the report.
