A Secure Future for Platform Workers

Context: Recently Government defined ‘Platform worker’ in the Code on Social Security Bill,2020. However, there is a strong case to attribute a more robust responsibility to platform companies and the State.

Platform workers in India:

• Definition: Platform work means a work arrangement outside of a traditional employer-employee relationship in which organisations or individuals use an online platform to access other organisations or individuals to solve speci?c problems or to provide speci?c services or any such other activities which may be noti?ed by the Central Government, in exchange for payment.
• Significance: 
• Delivery of essential services: During the pandemic and for keeping platform companies a?oat despite the pandemic induced ?nancial crisis. 
• Flexibility: Platform work promises workers flexibility and ownership over the delivery of work.
• Provides access to capital: Agrarian worker with access to capital from peri-urban areas rely on platform work to accumulate wealth to invest back into farm work.

Challenges Faced by Platform Workers:

• Failing to delineate it with a gig or unorganized worker: Platform workers are often misclassified as ‘’independent contractors’.

• Dictated by an algorithm: which affects pricing per unit work, allocation of work and hours.
• Dependence on capital: For, E.g. entry into on-demand platform works like ride-sharing, and food delivery are dependent on existing access to vehicular assets, which make it rely on intensive loan schemes.
• This also increased the workers’ dependence on platform aggregator companies, driven by financial obligations.
• Lack of responsibility under the law: It does not State which stakeholder is responsible for delivering what quantum of welfare. 

Way Forward:

• Tripartite Efforts: by the State, companies, and workers to identify where workers fall on the spectrum of flexibility and dependence on platform companies is critical.
• A categorical clarification of platform worker: can ensure that social security measures are provided to workers without compromising favourable qualities of platform work.
• For, E.g. Changes to labour laws in Ontario and California show a move towards granting employee status to platform workers, thus guaranteeing minimum wage and welfare benefits.

Conclusion: Platform worker delivered essential items during the lockdown and kept the companies financially afloat while putting themselves at greater risk. This has cemented their role as public infrastructures.