Big Basket on top, Ola, Porter, Dunzo at bottom in working conditions for gig workers: Fairwork India

Quick commerce platform BigBasket is the best organisation for gig workers in India, as per the Fairwork India 2023 report. Zomato, Swiggy, Urban Company and BluSmart, all came in second. Zepto, Flipkart, Amazon, and Dunzo followed and Porter, and Ola came in last.

Professors Balaji Parthasarathy and Janaki Srinivasan, the Principal Investigators of the report, noted, “In a year that has seen the formulation of a significant regulation based on inputs from workers, [The Rajasthan Platform Based Gig workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023], we hope that highlighting the experiences of workers will point to the structural changes that platforms, consumers and the State alike will need to undertake if the platform economy is to offer its workers decent work.”

The study judged each company based on five factors– Fair Pay, Fair Contract, Fair Management, Fair Representation, and Fair Conditions. Each factor had two points, which means, a company could receive 10 points maximum and 0 points minimum.  

This is the third year in a row when ride-hailing platformance Ola scored zero out of 10 points and remained at the bottom of the table in Fairwork’s ranking.

The Fairwork India team included EV-based ride hailing platform BluSmart in the ratings. They noted that BluSmart is different from other platforms in this sector because they operate on an “asset-light” model. 

As per the report, BigBasket, Flipkart, and Urban Company were the only platforms with a minimum wage policy to ensure that all their workers earn at least the hourly local minimum wage after factoring in work-related costs. None of the platforms made the second point of the Fair Pay principle, which requires platforms to provide sufficient evidence that workers earn at least the local living wage after work-related costs. But Urban Company has made a public commitment to ensure that its workers earn at least the local living wage after factoring in work-related costs, the Fairwork study said.

Amazon Flex, BigBasket, BluSmart, Flipkart, Swiggy, Urban Company, Uber, Zepto and Zomato were awarded the first point under the Fair Conditions principle for providing adequate safety equipment and periodic safety training to their workers.

Only BigBasket, Swiggy, Urban Company, Zepto and Zomato were awarded the second point for providing workers with accident insurance coverage at no additional cost, monetary compensation for income loss in cases where they were unable to work due to medical reasons other than accidents, and for ensuring workers’ standing was not negatively affected when they returned after a break taken with prior notification given to the platform.

Seven out of 12 platforms were awarded the first point for the Fair Contracts principle. BigBasket, BluSmart,Dunzo, Swiggy, Urban Company, Zepto and Zomato were awarded this point for ensuring the accessibility and comprehensibility of their contracts, and for having a protocol for data protection and management of worker data.

BigBasket, BluSmart, Urban Company, Zepto, and Zomato met the requirements for the second point under Fair Contracts by adopting a change notification clause in their contracts, reducing asymmetries in liability (such as by a provision to compensate workers for losses due to app malfunctions), adopting a Code of Conduct for their subcontractors, and making the variables of pricing transparent where dynamic pricing was used.