Opinion Women workers’ strike: How to ensure safety in the age of platform-based gig work

On October 31, Diwali, various cities witnessed digital strikes led by women gig workers of a popular beauty-based platform, organised by the Gig and Platform Service Workers Union. The strike brought public attention to the exploitative work conditions and exposed the false premise of “flexibility” promised by the digital economy. Women gig workers in beauty and wellness services and other domestic digital platforms have to visit clients in their homes, thereby making them more vulnerable to harassment and violence. Women workers in jobs like taxi driving or food delivery also face harassment on the roads by customers and other passersby. On the other hand, women customers of platforms like cab services, once subjected to violence or misconduct by the driver, are also left vulnerable. While the latter has gained some traction in the courts, there is blanket silence in the former case.

Digital platforms create a layer between the customer and the service provider. Local service providers used to be a part of the informal economy but had a transparent relationship with their customers who would call them for service on demand. Platform companies’ intervention disrupted this relationship. Platforms complicate the traditional categories of work, making existing labour laws appear redundant. The idea of a workplace is also complicated by platform intervention. The International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) definition of a workplace is a place where a worker needs to be for work, which includes location other than physical work sites, whether or not it is under the employer’s direct control. This clearly extends to any such place where the platform-gig worker works. With platform mediation, it becomes difficult to pin “accountability” in cases of sexual harassment and violence faced by a worker or a woman client.

Solving part of the puzzle

In the instance of the harassment of a woman customer by a platform driver, Karnataka High Court gave a judgment on September 30 2024 in Ms (X) vs ICC. It held ANI Technologies, which runs Ola Cabs, responsible for the sexual misconduct by the cab driver to the customer by upholding him as an employee of the company. Thus, the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) constituted by ANI Technologies was held responsible for acting in the case.

Ola’s argument in the case was two-fold. One, it kept contesting that it is not culpable because the driver was also an imposter (driving on someone else’s account). Two, it argued that any other driver too is just a driver partner or driver-subscriber, and this is agreed upon through a subscription agreement between the driver and the company. The judgment gives optimism to unions and activists since it upholds the subscription agreement between the driver and Ola, as the contract is the “governing relationship” between the two and that Ola does control. It elaborates on the role of Ola in management, supervision and control for the manner, method and mode of rendering services by the driver and the consequence of the breach of these terms by the driver. While the judgment clarifies that it is only for the purposes of the POSH Act, the driver is considered an employee of Ola. This sets precedent and gives hope to the platform-gig workers for the tests of employment for other labour laws. The fact that platform companies are held accountable for the safety of passengers gives a sense of security to the female users of these platforms and aids their mobility.

What needs to be addressed

However, another critical question to ask is: What happens when the positions are reversed – the driver or any other platform-gig worker is a female and aggrieved, and the customer is the harasser? Who takes responsibility for the customer’s misconduct towards the driver?

Since platform gig workers are not recognised as employees of the platform company, they are excluded from the coverage of the internal complaints committee. The ICC is to be established at all workplaces with more than 10 employees as stipulated by the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act of 2013 (POSH Act). For the unorganised sector, each district has to have a local complaints committee wherein the customer or the employer is to be taken to account for a sexual harassment complaint by a worker. However, by designating platform-gig workers as business partners and executives, the companies have obscured their status as workers, which makes them even more vulnerable since the application of the POSH Act provisions for the unorganised sector workers also eludes them.

The POSH Act, in its categorial definition, is broader than other labour and workplace laws. These intended broader categorisations of POSH, upon reading and reflection, ascertain that platform-gig workers are the employees, platforms are the employers, and the respective workplaces are workplaces under this law. So, the mechanism should ensure that the ICC of the platform company takes up responsibility if the aggrieved woman is the platform-gig worker and the harasser is the customer.

What’s Ahead

Unarguably, platforms must be responsible for the safety and well-being of their customers and workers and should be held accountable for it. Creating a safe workplace and providing decent work with dignity and without discrimination should be their focal points. Uber’s mobility platform currently has mechanisms for reaching out to workers and customers in case of unwarranted stoppages en route, but this is not enough. Platform companies need to have a declarative or compensatory policy to protect women platform-gig workers against gender-based violence and harassment from customers and others while they are at work.

The writer is research associate, Institute of Social Studies Trust