Written by Subhashini Ramasamy The Fairwork India Team released the Fairwork India Ratings 2022: Labour Standards in the Platform Economy report. According to this year’s report, no platform scored more than seven out of the maximum of ten points and none scored all the first points across the five principles. Amazon Flex, Dunzo, Ola, PharmEasy and Uber have scored zero out of ten across all principles. On the other hand, Urban Company ranks the highest with seven points, followed by bigbasket, Flipkart, Swiggy, Zomato, Zepto and Porter. The report examines the working conditions of the employees of digital labour platforms in India. It evaluates 12 platforms, including Amazon Flex, bigbasket, Dunzo, Flipkart, Ola, PharmEasy, Porter, Swiggy, Uber, Urban Company, Zepto and Zomato. The Fairwork India Team was spearheaded by the Centre for IT and Public Policy (CITAPP), International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B), in association with Oxford University. Fairwork assessed platforms against five principles: Fair Pay, Fair Conditions, Fair Contracts, Fair Management and Fair Representation. Each principle is further broken down into two points: a first point and a second point that can only be awarded if the first point has been fulfilled. Every platform received a score out of 10. The report revealed that bigbasket, Flipkart, and Urban Company implemented and operationalised policies to ensure that all workers on these platforms earn at least the hourly local minimum wage after factoring in work-related costs. Only bigbasket, Swiggy, and Urban Company were awarded the second point for implementing a loss of pay policy. Since bigbasket, Flipkart, Swiggy, Porter, Urban Company, Zepto, and Zomato ensured accessibility of their contracts and implemented a notice period before changes were made, they were awarded the first point for Fair Contracts. Further, bigbasket, Flipkart, Swiggy, Urban Company and Zomato were awarded the first point for Fair Management and only Urban Company earned the second point. Lastly, no platform earned a point for Fair Representation. The Fairwork India Ratings 2022 combined desk research and worker interviews conducted in Bangalore, Delhi and Kochi and evidence provided by the platforms.
