In the area of fairness, Amazon Flex, Bigbasket, BluSmart, Flipkart, Swiggy, Urban Company, Uber, Zepto and Zomato received the first point for providing adequate safety equipment and regular safety training to their employees. The only companies that received a second point were Bigbasket, Swiggy, Urban Company, Zepto and Zomato. These companies provided their employees with free accident insurance, paid for lost wages when they were unable to work due to illnesses other than accidents, and ensured that their status did not worsen when they returned from a break after informing the platform in advance had.
Of the 12 platforms, seven (BigBasket, BluSmart, Dunzo, Swiggy, Urban Company, Zepto and Zomato) ensure accessibility and understandability of their contracts.
The fair management principle, which ensures due process in decisions affecting employees, has been followed at Amazon Flex, BigBasket, BluSmart, Flipkart, Swiggy and Zomato. Meanwhile, BluSmart and Swiggy have adopted policies prohibiting discrimination against platform workers and institutionalized the conduct of routine external audits to look for bias in their work allocation methods.
All 12 platforms achieved zero points for fair representation. “There was sufficient evidence from no platform that they were willing to recognize a collective group of workers,” the report said.
“In a year in which a significant regulation was formulated based on employee input, [The Rajasthan Platform Based Gig workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023]We hope that highlighting the experiences of workers will highlight the structural changes that platforms, consumers and the state alike must make if the platform economy is to provide decent work for its workers,” say Professors Balaji Parthasarathy and Janaki Srinivasan, the Rector Investigators of the team, along with researchers Mounika Neerukonda, Bilahari M, Aditya Singh, Raktima Kalita and Meghashree Balaraj.
Recently, Rajasthan passed a law imposing a 2% tax on income of digital platforms operating in the state. The move orchestrated by the Indian National Congress Party would be the first in the country and the tax would help an estimated two million platform-based gig workers in the state receive social security and welfare benefits.
