The Centre for Internet and Society
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Labour futures: Intersectional responses to southern digital platform economies
https://cis-india.org/raw/labour-futures-intersectional-responses-to-southern-digital-platform-economies
<b>It is our great pleasure to announce that we are undertaking a two-year research project to comprehensively analyse dominant and emerging sectors in India’s platform economies. The project is funded by a research grant of USD 200,000 from the Internet Society Foundation.</b>
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<p>The works emerging from this project will directly inform the ongoing challenges that various stakeholders are encountering in negotiating policy-making for the platform economy. It will attempt to address these challenges by bringing forth a southern and worker-first understanding of the platform economy. In the immediate term, the project will speak to labour law "reforms" underway in India. In the long term, it will engage with historical and forthcoming policy discourse regionally and in India around regulation of e-commerce, trade, competition, and digital platforms.</p>
<h3>Provocations</h3>
<p>Few recent developments in recent times have attracted as much public and scholarly and policy attention as the platform economy (and it’s various terminologies such as sharing/gig/on-demand economy). While it is widely acknowledged that the platform economy is rapidly growing, very little is known about its size other than monetary estimates of market size. Reliable quantitative data on even some of the fundamental aspects of the platform economy has been unavailable. Platform companies have been notoriously averse to publishing open datasets, and the dispersed nature of the platforms and their workforces has made data collection particularly challenging. Innovative methodologies of data collection are urgent.</p>
<p>Another reason for the increasing attention has been the increasing embeddedness of platforms in urban infrastructures, and their central role in urban life. Several camps building approaches to and analyses of the platform economy have already been set-up across and within disciplines. Economists have offered a narrative of platform work that emphasises efficiency and opportunity, with some discussion of disruption of employment relations. Sociological work has focused on two main topics to explain outcomes for platform work—precarity, which focuses on employment classification and insecure labour, and technological control via algorithms. Both of these suggest exploitative experiences of platform labour.</p>
<p>Despite a global proliferation of digital platforms and their integration within numerous urban operations, much of the examination around these tools has tended to focus on their implementation within northern cities. Qualitative work in southern contexts is growing, and has been rich, but has often used similar analytical lenses as work in the North. This is showcased by the outsized attention paid in scholarship to models of labour platformisation referred to with the monikers ‘Uberisation’ and ‘Uber for X’, which limit the imagination of the platform economy to on-demand work. This research team’s work of platformisation in the domestic work sector in India has shown how such work, while crucial, essentialises a male and techno-centric formulation of the experiences of platform labour. There is an urgent need for a southern-led analytic approach to platform economies, which emphasises labour force intersectionalities, informalities in southern contexts, connections to conventional labour markets economics and regulation, and institutional voids in southern economies.</p>
<h3>Hypothesis and research questions</h3>
<p>The central hypothesis for this research project is that the generation of systematic macro-level data and robust regulatory documentation will lead to effective policy-making and advocacy. This can achieve secure and gainful labour market outcomes for workers in rapidly digitising southern economies. Achieving these outcomes will require multi-pronged strategies that can create pathways for structural changes. Such strategies include top-down approaches which will support regulatory and legislative policies, and judicial action through evidence-building. We will also focus on the embedding of bottom-up approaches in regulatory processes such as through workers’ organisation and resistance.</p>
<p>The broad research questions for this project are:</p>
<ul>
<li>What are the determinants and characteristics, historical and emergent, of digital platform entities’ recruitment, workforce management and economic value creation strategies?<br /><br /></li>
<li>What institutional roles, vis-à-vis civil society, markets and the state, are digital platform entities in the global south(s) occupying and seeking to occupy?<br /><br /></li>
<li>What are (a) regulatory, (b) corporate policy and (c) individual/collective labour responses that can generate equitable and gainful outcomes for workers in the digital platform economies?</li></ul>
<h3>Research team</h3>
<p>The research project will be led by Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon, along with Amber Sinha. Shayna Robinson, from the Internet Society Foundation, will be supporting our endeavours.</p>
<h3>Work with us</h3>
<p>The success of this project will be contingent on inter/trans-disciplinary approaches to generate sustainable and gainful work outcomes for the bodies labouring in the platform economies. In addition to stakeholder groups directly engaged in the platform economies, we plan to work with a diverse set of individuals and groups, including public interest technologists, economists, practitioners, labour and technology historians, and designers.</p>
<p>If you are interested in contributing to this project and collaborating on similar agendas, do reach out to either Aayush Rathi (<a href="mailto:aayush@cis-india.org">aayush@cis-india.org</a>) or Ambika Tandon (<a href="mailto:ambika@cis-india.org">ambika@cis-india.org</a>).</p>
<p>Do keep an eye out on CIS’s website and social media handles for listings of specific work opportunities on this and other projects. One such opportunity is <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/call-for-applications-researcher-labour-and-digitisation" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/labour-futures-intersectional-responses-to-southern-digital-platform-economies'>https://cis-india.org/raw/labour-futures-intersectional-responses-to-southern-digital-platform-economies</a>
</p>
No publisherAayush Rathi and Ambika TandonDigital LabourLabour FuturesDigital Economy2021-01-27T08:43:36ZBlog EntryYour economy, our livelihoods: A policy brief by the All India Gig Workers’ Union
https://cis-india.org/raw/your-econonomy-our-livelihoods-a-policy-brief-by-the-all-india-gigi-workers-union
<b>In this policy brief, the All India Gig Workers’ Union (AIGWU) presents its critique on NITI Aayog’s report on India’s platform economy. Through experiences from over 3 years of organising gig workers across India, they highlight fallacies in the report that disregard workers’ experiences and realities. They present alternative recommendations that are responsive to these realities, and offer pathways towards rights-affirming futures for workers in the platform economy.
</b>
<p><span style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/your-economy-our-livelihoods.pdf">Click to download</a> the full report</span></p>
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<h3>Alternative recommendations towards rights-affirming futures for workers in the platform economy</h3>
<p><strong>Regulating the unchecked rise of platforms and the platform workforce</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">The rise of platforms will not only affect workers in blue collar or grey collar jobs but also engulf other service sectors that currently provide permanent and dignified employment. The platform and gig work paradigm must not be used as a way to further deregulate the Indian economy by subterfuge.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Robust regulatory mechanisms and worker protections must be extended to the gig economy and other forms of perennial employment threatened by the new Central labour codes. Gig workers must be recognised as employees with a clear test of employment enshrined in law.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A stronger push towards better paradigms of work can only come from alternative models of platform work. It is essential that the government foster the creation of platform cooperatives in certain service sectors. Such platform cooperatives will mitigate market concentration that results from the network effects of large private platforms, offer greater stability than profit-oriented private platforms, and offer genuine pro-people alternatives.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Securing data rights and employment security</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Gig workers must be guaranteed individual and collective rights to their data collected and stored by platforms. Workers’ data should belong to the workers. Workers should be able to access verified records of their training (if any) and work contributions. The government should prescribe standards to ensure that these records are machine-readable and universally inter-operable. In addition, workers must have easy access to verified receipts for each successful task performed on the platform.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Centering gender-responsive protections for workers facing intersectional vulnerabilities</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Platform work is uncritically accepted as a panacea for women without taking a deeper look at labour practices, and how women workers may be particularly vulnerable to workplace risks and exploitation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Considering these vulnerabilities, there must be legal and regulatory measures enabling women to participate in the gig economy more fully—for example, creches, sexual harassment prevention measures, equal wages, and proper hours and working conditions. Crucially, there should be safety provisions for all gig workers, especially for women who face greater dangers of harassment. Importantly, accessible and efficient enforcement mechanisms must be introduced to operationalise schemes and rights for women workers.</p>
<p><strong>Securing minimum social protection guarantees for all workers on digital platforms</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Effective minimum wages of INR 26,000 per month must be enforced as demanded by the Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions in India. This figure must be used to determine the minimum earnings for an hour’s worth of work on a platform.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Provision for Provident Fund (PF) must be introduced, and a bank account that does not require minimum balances or related charges must also be guaranteed. Social insurance measures must be guaranteed including health insurance, personal accident insurance, pension, maternity benefits, and disability benefits. In addition, the state government must consider waiving off charges relating to fuel surcharges and parking expenses/ penalties for gig workers, while on duty.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Security and safety for women workers must be addressed by issuing government ID cards for gig workers. Gig workers are required to travel to unknown localities, where residents tend to be suspicious of them. The government ID card will help workers establish their identity and increase their credibility among the residents.</p>
<p>Social security legislation and a tripartite board (with representation of workers and worker organisations, government, and platforms) must be constituted to ensure registration of all platform-based gig workers and facilitate their access to social security. The law should cover all those persons who are engaged in professions that are using digital platforms for their last mile delivery.</p>
<p><strong>Building accountability mechanisms for financial inclusion measures on platforms</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">While including gig workers into the formal banking system is essential, this must not be used as a pretext to ensnare them into debt traps. Should the government wish to use platforms as a lever for financial inclusion, it must mandate platforms to deposit a minimum amount above and beyond workers’ existing incomes towards their consumption. For platforms, existing schemes must be rejigged—Firstly, the burden of credit schemes must not be borne only by public sector banks; the private sector must also be directed to take on some of the lending. Secondly, interest rates may be lowered for such loans, but this reduced rate must be made conditional on ensuring a certain threshold of working conditions to gig workers.</p>
<p><strong>Developing workforce estimation strategies that reflect workers’ realities</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Workers in the gig economy must not blindly be lumped with the unorganised sector without an understanding of nuances within the broad definition of the gig economy. Assumptions that workers in the gig economy have alternate sources of income must be refuted. Rather, in the case of gig workers in the Indian context, ground realities show that this work actually constitutes primary sources of income.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Primary data must be collected across the country where platform work is seen as a clear option for individuals to choose as a profession. Thus, one can estimate the percentage of the population that depends on the gig economy in a consistent manner. Digital platforms must provide adequate data to state governments on the number of workers registered on the platform in every region (along with work time data) in order for governments to actively prepare for public infrastructure requirements required for such employment generation.</p>
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<h3 dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">Contributors</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Authors: W.C. Shukla, Rikta Krishnaswamy, Rohin Garg, Gunjan Jena, and S.B. Natarajan</p>
<p dir="ltr">Images: All India Gig Workers’ Union (AIGWU)</p>
<p dir="ltr">Design: Annushka Jaliwala</p>
<h3>About the All India Gig Workers’ Union (AIGWU)</h3>
<p dir="ltr">The All India Gig Workers’ Union (AIGWU) is a registered trade union for all food delivery, logistics, and service workers that work on any app-based platforms in India.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Contact: <a href="mailto:contactaigwu@gmail.com">contactaigwu@gmail.com</a></p>
<p>Connect: <a href="https://twitter.com/aigwu_union">Twitter</a>; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/aigwu">Facebook</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of their individual authors. Unless the opposite is explicitly stated, or unless the opposite may be reasonably inferred, CIS does not subscribe to these views and opinions which belong to their individual authors. CIS does not accept any responsibility, legal or otherwise, for the views and opinions of these individual authors. For an official statement from CIS on a particular issue, please contact us directly.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/your-econonomy-our-livelihoods-a-policy-brief-by-the-all-india-gigi-workers-union'>https://cis-india.org/raw/your-econonomy-our-livelihoods-a-policy-brief-by-the-all-india-gigi-workers-union</a>
</p>
No publisherW.C. Shukla, Rikta Krishnaswamy, Rohin Garg, Gunjan Jena, and S.B. NatarajanLabour FuturesDigital EconomyGig WorkDigital LabourReserve Bank of IndiaFeaturedHomepage2024-01-31T00:02:12ZBlog EntryWorkers’ experiences in app-based taxi and delivery sectors: Key initial findings from multi-city quantitative surveys
https://cis-india.org/raw/workers-experiences-in-app-based-taxi-and-delivery-sectors-key-initial-findings-from-multi-city-quantitative-surveys
<b>In 2021-22, the labour research vertical at CIS conducted quantitative surveys with over 1,000 taxi and delivery workers employed in the app-based and offline sectors. The surveys covered key employment indicators, including earnings and working hours, initial investments and work-related cost burdens, income and social security, platform policies and management, and employment arrangements. The surveys were part of the ‘Labour Futures’ project supported by the Internet Society Foundation.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It has been over a decade since app-based delivery and taxi sectors began operations in India, and have since expanded to several metropolitan and smaller cities. These sectors together account for the largest proportion of the platform workforce in India. Workers’ collective action and demands have revealed extractive labour practices in the platform economy. However, there has been a dearth of reliable quantitative data on essential labour and economic wellbeing indicators for workers. In 2021-22, we conducted surveys with workers in the taxi and delivery sectors aiming to build an evidence base for worker-first policy-making in the platform economy. 1,048 workers were surveyed across four tier 1 and tier 2 cities—Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Lucknow, and Guwahati.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Research questions</h3>
<ol>
<li>What is the nature and scale of platform operations in the delivery and taxi sectors within various tier 1 and tier 2 cities in India?</li>
<li>What are the socio-economic contexts shaping workers’ decisions around transitioning in and out of the platform workforce in the delivery and taxi sectors?</li>
<li>What are the tangible and intangible costs, and conditions of work that workers navigate to sustain their employment on delivery and taxi platforms?</li>
<li>How does the assemblage of informal and formal structures, actors, and systems of work management shape economic outcomes for workers on delivery and taxi platforms?</li>
</ol>
<h3><br />Key initial findings</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Diverse employment arrangements</b><br />There is a sizeable presence of heterogeneous work organisation systems on both app-based delivery and taxi sectors, which diverge from an on-demand model. These systems mediate multiple aspects of everyday work allocation and processes, spatio-temporal rhythms of work, platform design and management, modes of labour control, levels of reintermediation, and employment arrangements.<br /><br />In the delivery sector, typologies are driven by platform models and work processes. Typologies of work organisation and control in the taxi sector, on the other hand, are centred around diverse employment arrangements and vehicle ownership models.<br /><br /><b>Socio-economic vulnerabilities impacting work outcomes</b><br />Workers in both the delivery and taxi sectors face a number of socioeconomic vulnerabilities that influence their entry and continued employment in platform work. Key motivating factors to enter platform work involved the lack of alternative employment opportunities (over 50 percent in both sectors) and the possibility of better pay than other available jobs (over 40 percent in both sectors).<br /><br />An overwhelming proportion of workers (over 95 percent in both sectors) were engaged in platform work as their main source of income, as opposed to part-time employment. Workers also faced significant economic burdens in various ways such as being sole earners in their household, having multiple financial dependents, providing remittances back home, and so on. Worsening these burdens was the widespread income insecurity that workers faced in both sectors—for around 50 percent of them, earnings from platform work were insufficient for covering basic household expenses.<br /><br /><b>Insufficient earnings and rising work-related expenses</b><br />Workers' experiences highlight how the majority of workers are forced to deal with low-wage outcomes, worsened by a reduction in bonuses, and high operational work-related expenses. Earnings remain low and uncertain for workers despite the fact that they put in long work hours. At the median level, workers on delivery platforms were working 70 hours a week, and those on taxi platforms were working an even higher 84 hours a week.<br /><br />In addition to platform charges and commissions, numerous work-related expenses such as fuel and vehicle maintenance costs are important factors that determine take home earnings for workers. The median net earnings, after accounting for all these costs, were INR 3,800 for delivery workers, and INR 5,000 for taxi workers. When adjusted for standard weekly work hours (48 hours/week), these earnings do not meet national minimum wage standards.<br /><br /><b>Absence of occupational health measures and social protection</b><br />Workers in both delivery and taxi sectors are already working immensely long hours in order to try and make adequate earnings on the platform, sometimes working almost double the amount when compared to standard weekly work hours. They also faced additional occupational health and safety risks during their work. Workers in both sectors faced grievous risks during work hours including those relating to road safety (around 80 percent), weather conditions (around 40 percent; 52 percent for delivery workers), theft (around 30 percent), and physical assault (around 25 percent).<br /><br />To make matters worse, workers were not provided adequate social protections to cope with workplace safety risks. Workers in the taxi sector had very low levels of access to crucial protections such as health insurance (6 percent) and accident insurance (28 percent). Access was relatively higher for workers in the delivery sector—32 percent had access to health insurance, and 62 percent had access to accident insurance. However, workers faced several barriers in receiving these benefits and protections, owing to burdensome and unreliable insurance claims processes. <br /><br /><b>Upcoming outputs</b><br />We hope that findings from these surveys are instrumental in speaking to extant and developing labour policy interventions, as well as adjacent policy areas including social protection, urban and infrastructural development, and sectoral regulation.<br /><br />In the coming weeks, we will be publishing a series of city briefs for each of the four survey cities. These briefs will be presented as data visualisation narratives, showing how workers’ experiences with platforms vary across tier 1 and tier 2 cities.<br /><br /><a class="external-link" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">Shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0)</a></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of their individual authors. Unless the opposite is explicitly stated, or unless the opposite may be reasonably inferred, CIS does not subscribe to these views and opinions which belong to their individual authors. CIS does not accept any responsibility, legal or otherwise, for the views and opinions of these individual authors. For an official statement from CIS on a particular issue, please contact us directly.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/workers-experiences-in-app-based-taxi-and-delivery-sectors-key-initial-findings-from-multi-city-quantitative-surveys'>https://cis-india.org/raw/workers-experiences-in-app-based-taxi-and-delivery-sectors-key-initial-findings-from-multi-city-quantitative-surveys</a>
</p>
No publisherAayush Rathi, Abhishek Sekharan, Ambika Tandon, Chetna V. M., Chiara Furtado, and Nishkala SekharGig WorkDigital LabourResearchers at WorkLabour Futures2024-02-16T01:27:07ZBlog EntryStrategies to Organise Platform Workers
https://cis-india.org/raw/strategies-to-organise-platform-workers-rightscon
<b>In 2022, the Centre for Internet and Society hosted a panel with Akkanut Wantanasombut, Ayoade Ibrahim, Rikta Krishnaswamy, and Sofía Scasserra at RightsCon, an annual summit on technology and human rights. </b>
<p><b><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/raw/strategies-to-organise-platform-workers/at_download/file">Click</a></b> to download the full report</p>
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<h3>Event Report</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This event report is based on proceedings from a panel hosted at the 2022 edition of RightsCon. Hosted by the labour and digitalisation team at CIS, the panel brought together seasoned labour organisers, activists, and researchers working across Thailand, Nigeria, India, and Argentina. The panellists represented a diverse group of worker organisations, including transnational federations, national unions, and informally organised movements.<br /><br />Their experiences of organising in research and practice infused our discussion with insight into collective action struggles across varied sectors and platform economies in the global south. Collective resistance among platform workers has witnessed a sustained rise in these economies over the past three years, with demands for transparency and accountability from platforms, and for a guarantee of rights and protections from governments.<br /><br />Through this panel, we sought to answer:</p>
<ol>
<li>How have workers’ organisations overcome challenges in sustained collective action?</li>
<li>What have been unique aspects of organising in the global south?</li>
<li>Which strategies have been gaining traction for organising workers and mobilising other stakeholders?</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><br />Placing workers’ participation front and centre, the panellists incorporated common threads around campaigning, education, and mobilisation for increasing worker participation, as well as bargaining with the government for legal and social protections. The panellists highlighted that it’s the resilience and resistance led by workers that drive the way for sustained organising. This panel hoped to spotlight steps taken in that direction, where organising efforts strive to form, sustain, and champion worker-led movements.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Contributors</h3>
<p><b>Panellists: </b><br />Akkanut Wantanasombut<br />Ayoade Ibrahim<br />Rikta Krishnawamy <br />Sofía Scasserra</p>
<p><b>Worker organisations in focus:</b><br />Tamsang-Tamsong<br />National Union of Professional App-based Transport Workers<br />International Alliance of App-based Transport Workers<br />All India Gig Workers’ Union <br />Federación Argentina de Empleados de Comercio y Servicios<br />Asociación de Personal de Plataformas</p>
<p><b>Conceptualisation and planning</b>: Ambika Tandon, Chiara Furtado, Aayush Rathi, and Abhishek Sekharan</p>
<p><b>Author</b>: Chiara Furtado<br /><b>Reviewers</b>: Ambika Tandon and Nishkala Sekhar<br /><b>Designer</b>: Annushka Jaliwala<br /><br />This event report is part of research supported by the Internet Society Foundation under the ‘Labour futures’ grant.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/strategies-to-organise-platform-workers-rightscon'>https://cis-india.org/raw/strategies-to-organise-platform-workers-rightscon</a>
</p>
No publisherfurtadoLabour FuturesDigital EconomyResearchers at WorkGig WorkPlatform-WorkFeaturedRAW ResearchHomepage2023-10-22T09:54:52ZBlog EntryLabouring (on) the app: agency and organisation of work in the platform economy
https://cis-india.org/raw/taylor-and-francis-gender-and-development-volume-30-2022-ambika-tandon-and-abhishek-sekharan-labouring-on-the-app-agency-and-organisation-of-work-in-the-platform-economy
<b>Ambika Tandon and Abhishek Sekharan published an academic paper highlighting the importance of women’s networks of information sharing and care in navigating opaque platform design. The paper is part of an issue of Gender and Development on ‘Women, Work and the Digital Economy’. Gender and Development is one of the few academic journals that priorities practitioners' experiences over theoretical contributions.
</b>
<h2>Abstract</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Women have a long history of organising in the informal economy, despite facing several challenges around geographical dispersion, time poverty, and lack of recognition. These challenges persist in the platform economy which pose similar concerns around precarious irregular work. Recent literature has documented the adoption of traditional and novel strategies to resist platform exploitation, through algorithmic manipulation, public demonstrations and logout strikes, and legal action. This paper explores the gendered realities that shape workers’ organising strategies and demands.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Using protests organised by women beauty workers in India as a case study, we discuss the factors underlying and leading to collectivisation. We find that women’s networks of information sharing and care are instrumental in navigating opaque and inefficient algorithms that fail to determine fully the organisation of work. We further examine the role of informal networks of information sharing in building workers’ identities which are instrumental in collective organising. Finally, we discuss the strategies and forms of organising adopted by women workers in this sector, which resonate with the rich history of organising in the informal economy.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click to access <span class="authors" style="text-align: left; ">Ambika Tandon & Abhishek Sekharan</span><span style="text-align: left; float: none; "><span> </span></span>2022 <span class="art_title" style="text-align: left; ">Labouring (on) the app: agency and organisation of work in the platform economy,</span><span style="text-align: left; float: none; "><span> </span></span><span class="serial_title" style="text-align: left; ">Gender & Development,</span><span style="text-align: left; float: none; "><span> </span></span><span class="volume_issue" style="text-align: left; ">30:3,</span><span style="text-align: left; float: none; "><span> </span></span><span class="page_range" style="text-align: left; ">687-706,</span><span style="text-align: left; float: none; "><span> </span></span><span class="doi_link" style="text-align: left; ">DOI:<span> </span><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2022.2130515">10.1080/13552074.2022.2130515</a>.</span> Full <a class="external-link" href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13552074.2022.2130515?journalCode=cgde20">article here</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/taylor-and-francis-gender-and-development-volume-30-2022-ambika-tandon-and-abhishek-sekharan-labouring-on-the-app-agency-and-organisation-of-work-in-the-platform-economy'>https://cis-india.org/raw/taylor-and-francis-gender-and-development-volume-30-2022-ambika-tandon-and-abhishek-sekharan-labouring-on-the-app-agency-and-organisation-of-work-in-the-platform-economy</a>
</p>
No publisherAmbika Tandon and Abhishek SekharanRAW ResearchLabour FuturesRAW PublicationsResearchers at Work2023-07-04T06:28:57ZBlog EntryOnline cab booking | Why finding a cab is a nightmare now
https://cis-india.org/raw/money-control-july-14-2022-why-finding-a-cab-is-now-a-nightmare
<b>Many drivers said the rise in commissions payable to ride-hailing platforms and higher fuel costs, among other expenses, have made it impossible for them to survive in the once-lucrative profession.</b>
<p>Aayush Rathi was quoted in this news article on how corporate policy is leading to difficulties in hailing cabs online:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Grassroots organisers have indicated a sizeable reduction in fleet sizes of Ola and Uber compared to pre-March 2020. There are numerous possible reasons for this,” said Aayush Rathi, a senior researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society. “One is the cost-of-living crisis in urban India that has solidified the reverse migration of the early Covid days. Then, the so-called moratoriums on loan repayments ended up increasing the total liability on drivers. Many drivers may have sold their cars or defaulted on loan payments.”</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click to read the <a class="external-link" href="https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/why-finding-a-cab-is-now-a-nightmare-8823881.html">full article</a> published by Money Control on July 14, 2022</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/money-control-july-14-2022-why-finding-a-cab-is-now-a-nightmare'>https://cis-india.org/raw/money-control-july-14-2022-why-finding-a-cab-is-now-a-nightmare</a>
</p>
No publisherHaripriya SureshLabour FuturesResearchers at Work2023-07-04T06:34:22ZNews ItemPDC 2022
https://cis-india.org/raw/pdc-2022
<b>Divyansha Sehgal and Yatharth presented their work - Designing Domestic Work Platforms - on critical design assessments of gig work platforms at the Participatory Design Conference.</b>
<p>For more detail on the conference held from 19 August to 1 September 2022, <a class="external-link" href="https://pdc2022.org/">click here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/pdc-2022'>https://cis-india.org/raw/pdc-2022</a>
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No publisherAdminLabour FuturesResearchers at Work2023-07-04T07:05:09ZNews ItemAtmanirbhar Bharat Meets Digital India: An Evaluation of COVID-19 Relief for Migrants
https://cis-india.org/raw/migrant-workers-solidarity-network-and-cis-ankan-barman-atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india-an-evaluation-of-covid-19-relief-for-migrants
<b>With the onset of the national lockdown on 24th March 2020 in response to the outbreak of COVID-19, the fate of millions of migrant workers was left uncertain. In addition, lack of enumeration and registration of migrant workers became a major obstacle for all State Governments and the Central Government to channelize relief and welfare measures.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A majority of workers were dependent on relief provided by NGOs, Civil Society Organizations and individuals or credit via kinship networks. With mounting domestic and international pressures, various relief and welfare schemes were rolled out but they were too little, too late and more often than not characterised by poor implementation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The aim of this report is to qualitatively assess health conditions of migrant workers and access to welfare during the first COVID-19 lockdown. The primary focus is on the host states of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Haryana. 20 in-depth interviews were conducted remotely with migrant workers working in various sectors. Their access to welfare schemes of the Central Government as well as of their host states was ascertained. Emphasis was also laid on their access to healthcare facilities in relation to COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 ailments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The findings of the report showcase a dismal state of affairs. No one in our sample group received any kind of dry ration or cooked food in a sustained manner and, in the rare occasions when they did, it was woefully inadequate. Of the three states considered, we found that relief distribution was the best in Tamil Nadu followed by Maharashtra and then Haryana. Even the Direct Cash Transfer Scheme of the Central Government under ‘<i>Atmanirbhar Bharat</i>’ did not reach the migrant workers. Moreover, the migrant workers were apprehensive to report any COVID-19 related symptom due to the draconian treatment that followed therein and the crumbling healthcare sector made it impossible to avail facilities in non-COVID-19 related issues. Lastly, a case has been made for the creation of bottom-level infrastructures to further dialogue between various stakeholders, including associations of migrant workers, for the implementation of schemes and policies which can consolidate migrant workers as a relevant political subject. As migrant workers reel from the impact of the second wave, pushing for on-ground infrastructure and supporting community-based organisations becomes even more urgent.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india.pdf">Click here to read the report</a> authored by Ankan Barman and edited by Ayush Rathi. [PDF, 882 kb]</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/migrant-workers-solidarity-network-and-cis-ankan-barman-atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india-an-evaluation-of-covid-19-relief-for-migrants'>https://cis-india.org/raw/migrant-workers-solidarity-network-and-cis-ankan-barman-atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india-an-evaluation-of-covid-19-relief-for-migrants</a>
</p>
No publisherankanRAW PublicationsResearchers at WorkCovid19FeaturedLabour FuturesAadhaarHomepage2021-06-03T12:53:57ZBlog EntryGlobal Perspectives on Women, Work and Digital Labour Platforms
https://cis-india.org/raw/global-perspectives-on-women-work-and-digital-labour-platforms
<b>Ambika Tandon was a panellist at the launch event for the Global Perspectives on Women, Work and Digital Labour Platforms organized by Digital Future Society on July 13, 2022 on online platform.</b>
<p>The panel discussed the gendered nature of gig work across different global south contexts. The other panellists were Francisca Pereyra, from the Instituto de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, and Uma Rani, from the International Labour Organization.</p>
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<p>For more information follow <a class="external-link" href="https://digitalfuturesociety.com/agenda/global-perspectives-on-women-work-and-digital-labour-platforms/">this link</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/global-perspectives-on-women-work-and-digital-labour-platforms'>https://cis-india.org/raw/global-perspectives-on-women-work-and-digital-labour-platforms</a>
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No publisherAdminLabour FuturesResearchers at Work2023-07-04T04:43:13ZNews ItemIndia’s gig economy drivers face bust in the country’s digital boom
https://cis-india.org/raw/tech-crunch-jagmeet-singh-india-gig-workers-problems
<b>Workers on platforms like Uber, Ola and Swiggy deal with blocked accounts, other backlash for speaking out over poor conditions</b>
<p>Aayush Rathi was quoted in a news article published by TechCrunch, a leading publication on technology and business reporting:</p>
<blockquote class="quoted">“Whenever a worker faces a challenge, it’s very hard for them to get recourse from anywhere. Most of these big platforms are geared toward alleviating customers’ grievances,” said Aayush Rathi, research and programs lead at the Centre for Internet and Society.</blockquote>
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<p><br />To read the full article published by TechCrunch on 25 January 2023, <a class="external-link" href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/25/india-gig-workers-problems/">click here</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/tech-crunch-jagmeet-singh-india-gig-workers-problems'>https://cis-india.org/raw/tech-crunch-jagmeet-singh-india-gig-workers-problems</a>
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No publisherJagmeet SinghLabour FuturesResearchers at Work2023-07-04T05:02:22ZNews ItemWomen at (gig) work: When financial freedom comes at a cost
https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-may-14-2023-aiswarya-raj-women-at-gig-work-unruly-customers-job-insecurity-prejudice-against-women-financial-freedom-comes-at-a-cost-for-women-working-as-delivery-executives-cab-drivers
<b>Chiara Furtado was quoted in a news article on women’s experiences working on ride-hailing and delivery platforms. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Chiara Furtado, researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society, says since women make up only 0.5 and 1% of the workforce in these two sectors – food delivery and cab-hailing industry – the standardised policies for workers end up being gendered. “Algorithm incentivises longer hours of work, late shifts, peak hours and consecutive rides, which prove to be discriminating against women,” she adds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Furtado says that findings have revealed that in times of crisis, most safety mechanisms tend to be more restrictive and end up curtailing the freedom and agency of women. Khatoon elucidates Furtado’s point with her own example. “I ride an e-scooter and don’t get orders to spots above a distance of 5 km. This decreases my area and income. Those who can travel 20 km get Rs 100 per ride,” she says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Companies claim to offer insurance, but the way they externalize fuel costs, they externalize risk and safety costs too. Apart from general safety, they have other grievances, such as toilets, which have gender underpinnings to it,” says Furtado.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click to read the full article published in the Indian Express <a class="external-link" href="https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/women-at-gig-work-unruly-customers-job-insecurity-prejudice-against-women-financial-freedom-comes-at-a-cost-for-women-working-as-delivery-executives-cab-drivers-8607997/">here</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-may-14-2023-aiswarya-raj-women-at-gig-work-unruly-customers-job-insecurity-prejudice-against-women-financial-freedom-comes-at-a-cost-for-women-working-as-delivery-executives-cab-drivers'>https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-may-14-2023-aiswarya-raj-women-at-gig-work-unruly-customers-job-insecurity-prejudice-against-women-financial-freedom-comes-at-a-cost-for-women-working-as-delivery-executives-cab-drivers</a>
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No publisherAiswarya RajLabour FuturesResearchers at Work2023-07-04T06:12:05ZNews ItemAs Equals: Frequently Asked Questions
https://cis-india.org/raw/as-equals-frequently-asked-questions
<b>Chiara Furtado was a panellist on the ‘As Equals’ series hosted by CNN since 2018 which aims to reveal what systemic gender inequality looks like. Chiara participated in a roundtable on digital harms and gender equality. </b>
<p>For more information, <a class="external-link" href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/06/world/as-equals-frequently-asked-questions-intl/index.html">click here</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/as-equals-frequently-asked-questions'>https://cis-india.org/raw/as-equals-frequently-asked-questions</a>
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No publisherAdminLabour FuturesResearchers at Work2023-07-04T06:54:59ZNews ItemWomen in Gig Work
https://cis-india.org/raw/women-in-gig-work
<b>Aayush Rathi was a speaker on a panel on domestic work and digital platforms, as part of WageIndicator Foundation’s 5th webinar on women and gig work.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to the International Labour Organisation, the number of digital labour platforms has multiplied by five in just the last ten years. The Covid-19 pandemic has further accelerated the digitalisation of the workplace and the expansion of the gig economy across different sectors.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Gig work can offer women opportunities, for example, to enter or re-enter the labour market, earn an income, gain financial independence and flexibility… At the same time, however, many women across the world are encountering significant challenges in finding decent work in the gig economy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Women in Gig Work is a two-part webinar event. The first webinar on 27 October <b>will focus on domestic work, one of the sectors where digital platforms are expanding across the world</b>. Domestic workers are, according to the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), the “original gig workers”. The sector is characterized for <b>being highly informal</b>, <b>highly feminized</b> and <b>racialised</b>, and for <b>having precarious working conditions</b>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The second session of Women in Gig Work in March 2023 will focus on women's experiences in online web-based platforms.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">For more information <a class="external-link" href="https://wageindicator.org/about/events/2022/women-in-gig-work-october-27-2022">click here</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/women-in-gig-work'>https://cis-india.org/raw/women-in-gig-work</a>
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No publisherAdminLabour FuturesReserve Bank of India2023-07-04T07:00:19ZNews ItemMetaphors of Work, from ‘Below’
https://cis-india.org/raw/springer-platformization-and-informality-chapter-metaphors-of-work-from-below
<b>Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon authored a chapter that describes platforms as more than technological interfaces. The chapter invokes some of the metaphors that gig workers use to make sense of platforms. This chapter was part of an edited volume published by Springer. This chapter forms part of the ‘Labour Futures’ research project, hosted at the Centre for Internet and Society, India, and supported by the Internet Society Foundation. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Various disciplines have produced literature on digital platforms—broadly categorised as technological interfaces enabling the exchange of goods and services — with little consensus on what platforms are and how they impact economic and labour systems. Features that are commonly associated with platforms include their role in increasing efficiency in supply chains, their deployment of cutting-edge technology, and their ability to ‘disrupt’ existing modes of provision of services and goods (Jarrahi & Sutherland, 2019). The use of metaphors and carefully curated taxonomy has been crucial in cementing this idea of the digital platform as a technological layer objectively matching supply and demand (Gillespie, 2017). This chapter seeks to document and understand how workers experience different types of digital platforms, and how workers’ imaginaries of platforms differ from popular and academic conceptions.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-11462-5_8">Click to read more</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/springer-platformization-and-informality-chapter-metaphors-of-work-from-below'>https://cis-india.org/raw/springer-platformization-and-informality-chapter-metaphors-of-work-from-below</a>
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No publisherAayush Rathi and Ambika TandonLabour FuturesRAW BlogResearchRAW PublicationsRAW ResearchResearchers at Work2023-07-03T12:29:29ZBlog EntryBlinkit protests: For gig workers, there is no income security – and little legal recourse
https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-aditi-surie-and-ambika-tandon-april-20-2023-blinkit-protests-for-gig-workers-there-is-no-income-security
<b>Aditi Surie and Ambika Tandon co-authored an opinion essay on the reasons behind a week-long strike by workers of Blinkit — a popular hyperlocal delivery platform. The protests were in response to changes in Blinkit’s policies that will halve workers’ pay.</b>
<p>The article was published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/blinkit-protests-for-gig-workers-there-is-no-income-security-8567205/">Indian Express</a> on April 20, 2023.</p>
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<p>By calling themselves 'intermediaries' platforms are reducing workers' incomes, increasing labour insecurity.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b><a class="external-link" href="https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/why-blinkit-ops-are-hit-in-delhi-ncr-8555370/">Blinkit delivery agents have been on strike for a week</a></b> as a reaction to changes that will halve their monthly incomes. The protests started after the company changed the basis on which they will get paid, and how much they will get paid. These two factors: The calculation of “wages” and the actual sum of money earned have been at the heart of many gig worker protests over the years. Uber and Ola drivers have protested about big drops in their income over the years. The Blinkit protests last week are a reminder of the kind of problems that are specific to gig-platform workers. Gig-platform worker wages can be changed quickly, and are at the mercy of much larger forces in a platform company like Blinkit.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Despite being labelled self-employed independent contractors by companies, platform workers have little control over their terms of work. They have to get used to platforms dictating how much they earn per task if they want to work. But to change the entire structure of pay has made many workers feel defrauded and lied to. Until these changes, Blinkit used to pay workers through an assured base pay of Rs 25 with incentives on top that nudged workers to work more, faster, or on particular days. As per workers’ accounts, this allowed them to earn Rs 6,000 to 7,000 a week with a degree of certainty, with Rs 1,400 to 1,500 being spent on fuel and other expenses. The base pay had already been reduced last year from Rs 50 despite rising fuel costs and inflation driving up costs of survival. In the current instance of policy change, the company provided no prior information to workers that they would, now, be paid for each kilometre they drive. Platforms like to call this “effort”-based pay. The effort here is how far your motorcycle runs and has little to do with how much real effort it takes to complete a delivery. For Blinkit, which provides grocery delivery within a 2-km radius, the chance for workers to make a secure income is low. Their incomes also depend on the rate for each kilometre ridden. This rate always changes, but most delivery agents do not know when it will change. It can change at any given day or week, or time in the day so that there is no surety on how much a worker will take home any given week.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Incentive-driven payout structures have “gamified” platform work, such that workers are forced to compete for an increasing number of tasks within compressed periods with the promise of bonus pay. These structures are constantly shifting, with workers complaining that companies reduce their task allocations so they are unable to meet their incentives. This level of volatility and uncertainty is a hallmark of taxi and delivery platforms.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">To access the full article, log on to <a class="external-link" href="https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/blinkit-protests-for-gig-workers-there-is-no-income-security-8567205/">Indian Express web page</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-aditi-surie-and-ambika-tandon-april-20-2023-blinkit-protests-for-gig-workers-there-is-no-income-security'>https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-aditi-surie-and-ambika-tandon-april-20-2023-blinkit-protests-for-gig-workers-there-is-no-income-security</a>
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No publisherAditi Surie and Ambika TandonLabour FuturesResearchers at Work2023-07-04T07:30:52ZBlog Entry