Author: Martijn Arets (Website - LinkedIn - Twitter)
What is the impact of platforms in a country like India? During my visit to this exceptionally beautiful country, I struck up a conversation with Varsha Bansal. She is an independent journalist who writes a lot about platform work and the impact of technology on work. In the latest episode of The Gig Work Podcast, I discuss with her the growth and impact of platform work in India, with a particular focus on delivery, taxi and domestic work.
'Hidden for years'
Bansal lived in the US for three years and when she returned to India in 2016, she was impressed by the convenience of ordering services via a mobile app. Until she delved into this platform economy.
"While I enjoyed the ease of ordering meals, taxis or cleaners, the people doing the work were suffering," Bansal says. After a few years of research for Indian newspaper the Economic Times, she discovered the poor working conditions of platform workers. "The taxi drivers, cleaners or food delivery workers sometimes worked as long as 14 hours straight and did not even earn the minimum wage. These problems were unknown and were hidden for years."
High earnings, lots of freedom
Bansal explains that taxi apps Uber and Ola quickly became popular in India about 10 years ago. "Later, food delivery platforms and apps for cleaning work were added," she says. "All these companies gave huge discounts to attract as many customers as possible. And those who got to work via an app could count on high compensation."
Working via an app seemed super attractive, even for people who had never previously thought of working as taxi drivers, cleaners or delivery riders. "Highly educated young people moved from small towns and villages to the big city to earn money via apps like Uber and Ola. Who would have thought you could earn so much with simple work? The big tech companies convinced them that working via apps was the way to a better life."
While highly educated Indians with a job in engineering or healthcare could earn a salary of 10,000 to 15,000 rupees, Uber promised monthly earnings of up to 80,000 rupees. In addition, workers would have a lot of freedom to set their own working hours and have more time for their families. Bansal: "That was very attractive especially to women."
False promises
But a few years later, it turned out that the companies had made false promises. Taxi drivers were getting lower and lower tariffs and had to work longer and longer. "Just quitting was not possible because many drivers had invested in leased cars," says Bansal. "Around 2018, there were a lot of stories of Uber drivers committing suicide because they couldn't pay off their debts."
Platforms promised workers high earnings and customers hefty discounts, to grow hard in a short time. But in the end, a platform also has to make money and distribute profits to investors and shareholders. That's where things went wrong, Bansal explains. "This problem is not just in India and not just with taxi apps. I see it happening with platforms all over the world."
Violence, discrimination and unjustified deactivations
Apart from disappointing revenues and freedoms, there are more problems with platform work in India. Some problems existed before work was done via platforms, such as violence and discrimination against taxi drivers. "Sometimes technology is making these issues worse," says Bansal. "For example, I am now doing a study on the difference in earnings by neighbourhood. It seems that drivers in rich areas get paid more than workers in poor neighbourhoods. So class differences are only widening."
Her research also shows that workers are regularly unfairly blocked. For instance, the platform receives an unjustified complaint or there is simply a flaw in the system. "The platform worker has no option to challenge a blockage," she says. "The only way to get back to work is to re-register and pay a fee. Which is about 50,000 rupees."
Slow improvement
Eventually, all the problems led Indian taxi drivers to form unions. Via Whatsapp and Telegram, they organised protests and talks with politicians and the business community for better working conditions. But the situation is changing very slowly, says Bansal. While Europe and the United States are working on legislation, in India there are still hardly any laws and regulations around the (labour) rights of platform workers. “One of the main reasons for unions to have formed much later amongst gig workers is because of the way it’s designed for them to work in isolation. To break that and find peers takes some time.”
Moreover, finding out facts and figures is difficult, she says. "There is little official data available on platform work," Bansal explains. "So anyone who wants to find out what is happening in the platform economy has to conduct their own surveys and collect data. This is difficult not only for me as a journalist, but also for unions that want to show what is wrong."
When Bansal first started using platforms, she was enthusiastic. Has her opinion changed? "Platformisation is neither good nor bad, there is mainly a lack of policy," she says. Through her work as a journalist, Bansal hopes to raise awareness among politicians. "To manage innovation, we need regulation that works in the interests of both platforms, clients and workers. The industry is not going to provide that, so the government really needs to get to work."
Conclusion
It was interesting to learn the differences and similarities of the strategies that platforms follow and their impact on the worker. While there was plenty of work for skilled professionals, these highly educated young people started working as taxi drivers en masse because platforms promised them a high income. This is an interesting insight, as platforms are often praised for formalizing informal markets. In this case, it turned out that they were also competing with formal salaried jobs.
When earnings went down, considerable problems arose for the workers. Eventually, the platform workers managed to form unions and collectively stand up for their rights. This slowly gave them more say, access to work and transparency on tariffs and payment.
Meanwhile, it is clear that workers' working conditions are not a priority for the managements and investors behind the platforms. That is why the government and unions are working to provide more protection for this group of workers. This will also benefit workers who do not work via apps, which is a large group in India. In this way, hopefully, the malpractices by platforms will eventually lead to better working conditions for Indian workers in general.
Want to learn more about the platform economy in India? Listen to the full podcast here.