This year’s list of labor conditions in India’s new economy is aced by the Homegrown e-commerce marketplace, Flipkart.
The report was brought out by UK-based FairWork Foundation, with a score of seven out of 10.
Contents
Online Platform Assessment
The second spot was occupied by the home-services marketplace Urban Company.
Interestingly, Ola and Uber scored the lowest, while Bigbasket and Swiggy got four out of 10 each.
The report considered 11 major platforms which are Flipkart, Urban Company, Bigbasket, Swiggy, Zomato, Amazon, Dunzo, PharmEasy, Ola, Porter, and Uber.
Assessment Parameters
These platforms were accessed on the basis of pay, conditions, contracts, management, and representation.
According to this report, the impact of Covid-19 made 2021 a difficult year for the Indian economy generally, specifically for gig economy workers.
The report further said, “Mobility restrictions meant a reduction in ride-sharing services while other forms of gig work such as food delivery have ballooned in the past year. Almost across the board, take-home pay has declined, even in sectors where demand has not been hampered by the pandemic,”.
Highlighting Working Condition
The report noted that “While some of the lower Fairwork scores represent indefensibly poor working conditions, other platforms have made efforts to ameliorate at least some of their policies. Most significantly, Bigbasket, Flipkart, and Urban Company committed to instituting a minimum wage floor (after work-related costs) for all their workers,”.
Although there is still a long way to go for fair conditions in the sector, such changes show the right direction, the report said.
Urban Company topped the list last year, while Flipkart’s subsidiary Ekart scored seven out of 10.
Dunzo and Grofers scored 4 out of 10 each at the same time.
It seems that things have taken a worse turn for the home services startup Urban Company as only a year ago it was rated as the best place for gig workers in 2021.
Basically, this company has lost its top stop to Flipkart after achieving its unicorn status in June 2021.
The unicorn term is used for startup parlance, for a company valued at or more than $1 billion.
It is noteworthy here that Flipkart has not changed anything about the way they treat their contractual employees.
Urban Company Losing Its Spot
But the same is not true with Urban Company as it has fallen three spots in 12 months.
The timing coincides with Urban Company serving a legal notice to its female contractual workers, earlier protesting outside their office at the start of this month.
Prior to this, during October, over 100 female beauticians had also protested against the company in seeking better working conditions and fair wages mechanisms.
Low Ranks For Ola And Uber
Hard to believe, but somehow these platforms, Uber and Ola have stepped down from their already low ranks.
Both of them scored 0 on 10 based on the benefits and the amenities provided by the companies.
The rating was affected by several factors including fair pay, conditions, contract, management, representations and more.
The results show that Zomato has worked all year round to improve their rating by 2 points by offering better working conditions to their delivery partners.
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