By Krishna Jha
Gig platforms’ contributions are now more than fifty percent to the country’s service sector. According to data available, it is 55 percent and more to the country’s digital economy and thus playing a crucial role in the urban employment. It is a boon to the migrants, semi skilled workers and youth and thus helps meaningfully in curtailing the unemployment rate in the country. It also gives an impetus to the expansion of economy, with growing rate of digitalization, cashless payments, GPS based logistics, and finally AI driven service delivery. It also works for the promotion of digitalization in various sectors and Innovation: Gig platforms accelerate digitalisation, cashless payments, GPS-based logistics, and AI-driven service delivery. They are for India’s ecosection, Aadhaar, and mobile connectivity and strengthens country’s Public digital system infrastructure (DPI). In urban employment regularization too it plays a promotional role.
In sectors like ride hailing, food delivery, logistics, and e-commerce, home services, and digital freelancing have expanded rapidly, supporting service-consumption driven growth.
Thus their support helps promote country’s DPI ecosystem enhancing economic efficiency and formalisation. With this, India’s digital economy is expected to grow almost twice as fast as the overall economy, contributing to nearly one-fifth of national income by 2029-30. Gig platforms enable micro-entrepreneurship by lowering entry and also enhances labour market flexibility by allowing workers to choose their hours and diversify income sources, while also absorbing displaced workers during economic shocks such as the post-COVID recovery. Unfortunately, for most gig economy jobs, employee benefits aren’t part of the package as they are with traditional employment. Gig workers typically do not receive health insurance, retirement plans, or paid leave. A 2023 study by The National Institute for Workers’ Rights revealed that 54 percent of gig workers do not have access to employer based benefits. As a result, they must independently secure health insurance and plan for retirement through various other options away from their employer.
Similarly, most companies do not withhold taxes from payments to gig workers. As independent contractors, gig workers are responsible for managing their own taxes. The IRS mandates that self-employed individuals file an annual income tax return and pay estimated taxes quarterly. This includes the self-employment tax, which covers Social Security and Medicare, totalling 15.3 percent. Unfortunately for most gig economy jobs, employee benefits aren’t part of the package as they are with traditional employment.
There is also another negative factor, which is absence of workplace community. Some freelancers and gig workers find that working independently can lead to feelings of isolation. Since these workers typically don’t get to go into an office, they may feel they’re missing out on the social aspects of a traditional workplace such as casual watercooler conversations and office events. While this flexibility can be a perk, it can also lead to feelings of disconnection from colleagues.
Gig and platform workers need to be engaged for at least 90 days with an aggregator within a financial year to avail social security benefits formulated under the new Social Security Code, draft rules released for public comment have proposed. For workers engaged with multiple aggregators, the threshold has been proposed at 120 days. The rules treat a worker as engaged from the day they start earning an income, regardless of the amount. If a worker is associated with multiple aggregators, their days of work will be counted cumulatively across all platforms. For example, if a gig or platform worker is engaged with three aggregators on a particular day, this will be counted as three days. The rules also clarified that an eligible gig or platform worker will include all such workers engaged by the aggregator directly or through an associate company, subsidiary or limited liability partnership or through a third party. The new labour codes mandate social security such as health, life and personal accident insurance for gig workers and other arrangements that government may propose. Labour ministry has already started registering gig workers on ‘e-Shram’ portal and will be part of ‘Ayushman Bharat’.
Gig workers also demand 10-minute Delivery Plan scrapped. Gig workers of e-commerce platforms like Zomato, Blinkit, Amazon, and Swiggy went on a strike on December 25 and 31 to highlight deteriorating working conditions. At least one lakh workers joined the strike.
However, the strike did not receive much response. Even on the last day of the year, on December 31, their calls for better pay, improved labour conditions and social security protections remained unattended. One of the demands of the workers has been to scrap the super-fast 10-minute deliveries, which, despite stern opposition, remained valid.
The other issues that keep hurting the gig workers are long, uncertain hours, in horrible environment pollution and fuel crisis. On the over crowded streets, if they cannot manage to reach in time, they have to pay penalty, while in return their wage is never fixed. As their preorder incomes are falling, workers cannot complain. Many stand with the gig workers’ concern of 10-minute deliveries being dangerous, others argue that it should be applicable only for medical emergencies. Saying that this masks inefficiency on various levels, users do not deny the loss of jobs that may follow the ban.
The strike comes during recent government labour discussions and reforms aimed at officially recognising platform and gig workers for the first time. They also seek intervention of the government, urging both Central and States bodies to enforce labour protections, regulate platforms, launch social security frameworks and recognise the right of the workers to organise and collectively bargain.
In fact a gig worker spends the entire working life being monitored, trained, rewarded only through an app. There is no human input. (IPA Service)
US Imperialism Exposed As Britain And The EU Look The Other Way 