PLATFORM-BASED gig workers (shortly, gig workers) belong to several occupations such as rail-hailing, food and grocery delivery, home services, etc. Their services are widening and intensifying as urbanization grows and multiple partners in a family are gainfully employed Ola, Uber, Swiggy, etc. have spread to Tier-1 cities like Pune, and the extended cities of Chennai and Mumbai for example. This is part of a world wide story. Exploitation by Platforms, no social security Much as the customers enjoy their delivery at their doorstep, the workers employed by these platforms due to various factors are not faring well in terms of their overall earnings and working conditions. Their protests in the last decade , strikes and logoffs have yielded limited if any results . Their demands include beibg given the status of “workers” under the relevant labour laws, the right to organize and conduct collective bargaining in good faith, fair contracts, good working conditions including reasonable hours of work, and comprehensive social security, use of toilets at work among others. The platform-aggregators do not offer any welfare benefits save minimum insurance cover possibly( often not even that ) and are not willing to engage with the workers’ unions to discuss pay-related matters. .What does Karnataka’s new Bill for platform-based gig workers entail?.What does the budget offer them It is in these contexts, that we need to assess the recent pronouncement of the Finance Minister in offering to provide them with health coverage.To quote her: “Gig workers of online platforms provide great dynamism to the newage (sic) services economy. Recognising their contribution, our Government will arrange for their identity cards and registration on the e-Shram portal. They will be provided healthcare under PM Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY). This measure is likely to assist nearly 1 crore gig-workers.” This is a one-off welfare scheme offered to them but social security is a wide concept. Not workers under the Code The Central government enacted in 2020 a Social Security Code (SSC) which recognizes “gig workers” who are “outside of traditional employer-employee relationship” [s.(2)(35)]. This definition effectively takes them out of possible coverage in other Labour Codes like the Industrial Relations Code (IRC). This is a strategic play of the Central government to keep the gig workers out of all but SSC. .What gig workers need is not just social security but identity as workers under labour laws..Let us look at what the Code offers in terms of social security to them. The Codes state the Central/State governments “shall” frame from time to time frame “suitable welfare schemes for unorganised workers “on matters relating to” disability, health and maternity benefits, old age protection, employment injury benefits, provident fund, old age homes, etc. for unorganised workers . In the case of gig workers, the Central government “may” frame schemes relating to components like life and disability cover, accident insurance, health and maternity benefits, old age protection, creches etc. We see discriminatory treatment concerning gig workers vis-à-vis the unorganised workers, though both are in fact unorganised workers . A mess, between State and Center According to the Budget, to avail of the benefits of the PM-JAY the workers are expected to register in the E-Shram portal upon which they will be issued identity cards. For this workers must have among others Aadhar cards and Aadhar-linked bank accounts. These have high transaction costs both in effort and time spent. Now the SSC also requires the gig workers to register under the Code and to get a “distinguishable number” to avail of the social security benefits. Recently , State governments have either proposed or actually legislated social security laws for gig workers which will require registrations under the state domain and some identity number. Unless these processes are portable, the workers will be helplessly and hopelessly trapped in a digital procedural mess instead of securing seamless benefits. Each registration has an opportunity cost of time/effort. Ad-hoism and lack of coordination and planning impose costs on the workers. Further it is possible some if not many of the gig workers might already be covered under the Scheme given that 55 crore beneficiaries are covered under PM-JAY (https://nha.gov.in/PM-JAY#:~:text=Over%2012%20crore%20poor%20and%20vulnerable%20entitled,crore%20beneficiaries)%20are%20eligible%20for%20these%20benefits.&text=Because%20of%20its%20scope%2C%20PM%2DJAY%20is%20the,that%20form%2040%%20of%20its%20bottom%20population). .Unless these processes are portable, the workers will be helplessly and hopelessly trapped in a digital procedural mess instead of securing seamless benefits..E-Shram registrations The E-Shram portal was opened to register the migrant, unorganised workers on 26 August 2021 during the covid pandamic . As of 12 February 30.63 (306, 267,354) crore workers covering numerous occupations including agricultural workers, domestic workers etc have registered on the portal (https://eshram.gov.in//dashboard, accessed February 12, 2025). According to the Secretary of the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) at some point in time owing to representations from it , a separate category of “gig” workers was added. However, the Dashboard of E-Shram does not reveal data separately on gig workers. Under the Miscellaneous category, I found 181,028 “Home deliveryman” (why this sexist term?), 30.43 lakh (30,42,850) car, taxi and van drivers and others, 12.18 lakh (18,11,816) auto-rickshaw drivers, 1.09 (108,889) motorcycle drivers have registered as of 12 February 2025 (https://eshram.gov.in//dashboard, accessed February 12, 2025). Now we do not know for a fact how many of these are gig and non-gig workers from the official data. The Secretary IFAT just informed me that to their knowledge only 20,000 workers have registered as platformeconomy/gig workers which is barely a count encouraging. (Interview over phone February 12 2025). If there is confusion, then the gig workers need to register afresh. .What the gig workers need is not piecemeal legal measures but comprehensive social security on a definite statutory basis..The Finance Minister expects the PM-JAY scheme will benefit one crore gig workers. If we wrongly assume that all registrations as drivers, etc. were by gig workers, over four years, around 42-43 lakh gig workers have been registered. Going by this and even if we assume unrealistically rapid feverish pace of registrations, registering one crore workers or even 50 lakh workers will take much longer. Alternatively, the platform aggregators can supply data possibly under the Collection of Statistics Act, 2008 to the E-Shram Registry which can convert them as registrations. While any form of benefit like the one offered by FM will be helpful to the workers, what the gig workers need is not piecemeal legal measures but comprehensive social security on a definite statutory basis. More importantly, they need to be recognised as “workers” under the IRC and other Codes wherein they will get benefits like minimum wages, occupational safety, right to collective bargaining, etc. What they need is not merely a social security measure but the “identity of workers” which they are doubtlessly so.
