Only some digital platforms that are currently employing millions in the country are paying a minimum wage and not one of them is providing a living wage to workers.
This was among the conclusions of a report by Fairwork India Ratings-2023. This is the fifth edition of the report which studied work conditions of gig and platform workers on digital labour platforms, including in Hyderabad. This year, the team evaluated 12 platforms against five Fairwork principles, according to the report.
The Fairwork India team is led by the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP) at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore together with the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford.
“No platform 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. However, 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,” says the report.
The focus area this year was alienation of workers. “This alienation is deeply intertwined with the discrimination that platform workers face due to social identities such as caste, class, gender, and religion,” says the report.