Uber and Amazon slammed for poor working conditions for gig workers in India • TechCrunch

Research firm Fairwork India slammed Ola, Uber, Dunzo, PharmEasy and Amazon Flex in a report on Tuesday, saying the companies scored zero in their assessment of creating a level playing field for their workers.

The research project, which worked with partners at the University of Oxford, said the above companies did not offer fair pay, fair contracts, fair management, fair representation or fair working conditions. to their workers.

The company studied 12 companies and gave Unicorn Urban Company a score of seven out of 10, six to online grocer Bigbasket, five to Flipkart and Swiggy, four to Zomato, two to grocery delivery company Zepto and one to the Tiger Global-backed delivery company. Carry.

“This year, only Bigbasket, Flipkart and Urban Company earned the top spot due to public commitments they made to pay workers at least the local minimum hourly wage after factoring in labor-related costs,” said Fairwork India in its fourth annual report. report.

“Bigbasket and Urban Company have operationalized this by committing to reimburse the difference between the worker’s hourly wage and the local minimum hourly wage after costs. Flipkart and Urban Company have pledged to base their price structure for workers on the local hourly minimum wage after costs. Flipkart has also taken steps to compel its third-party service providers to abide by the same commitment,” the report adds.

Gig economy workers, whose labor force participation has increased dramatically in recent years, miss out on the vast amount of social benefits such as health insurance. Many researchers claim that the companies that use these workers exploit them and limit corporate liability.

“The promise of flexibility in the digital platform economy raises as many questions about livelihoods as it offers opportunities. We hope the Fairwork report will provide the basis for an interpretation of flexibility that not only allows for the adaptability sought by platforms, but also the income and social security that workers lack,” said Professors Balaji Parthasarathy and Janaki. Srinivasan, the main researchers of the team. , in a report.

You can read the full report here (PDF).