Karnataka Gig Workers Bill 2024

Context (TH): Karnataka introduced Draft Platform-based Gig Workers (Social Security & Welfare) Bill.
Earlier, Rajasthan enacted Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023.
In India, gig and platform workers are included in the Code on Social Security (CSS), 2020. However, it is not mentioned in the three new labour codes.

Code on Wages consolidates laws related to wages and bonus payments across all sectors in India.
Industrial Relations Code aims to streamline and modernise labour laws concerning trade unions, industrial disputes, and conditions of employment.
Occupational Safety, Health, and Working Conditions Code ensures safe and healthy working environments and regulates working conditions across various industries.

Need for legislation

Rising Gig Economy: Growth, especially in the app-based cab and retail delivery sectors (potential to add 1.25% to GDP).
Vital Livelihood: Gig work is crucial for job-seekers as it accommodates 7.7 million workers; NITI Aayog forecasts 23.5 million gig workers by 2030 (India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy).
Worker Agitations: Issues include revenue sharing, working hours, and employment terms.
Legal Challenges: Traditional labour laws struggle with the gig economy’s non-traditional dynamics.
Income Uncertainty: No minimum earnings guarantee even with full availability.
Safety: Risk due to unregulated working hours, such as overworked app cab drivers jeopardising safety.
Recognition of Employment Relations: Gig work has existing employment relations as observed in the UK’s Uber case (Uber is an employer, and the existing labour laws of the UK do apply to Uber drivers).

Employment relations in the gig economy are subject to demystification and complications (e.g., legal battles and regulatory challenges faced by Uber in the UK).
Those who run the platform (like Zomato) prefer to call themselves aggregators and consider gig workers as independent contractors.
Aggregators believe they provide technology to connect independent workers with consumers, emphasising that workers have control over their work.
However, workers in the gig economy often view aggregators as their employers and demand legal entitlements (For example, Bangalore Swiggy delivery partners’ protest).

Deficient Definition: Bill skirts employment relations, terms ‘aggregator’ over ’employer’. (The platform is a tool, not an independent entity. Hence, aggregators are the actual employers).
Historical Failures: Follows welfare board model, which has been poorly implemented historically.
- For example, the Construction Workers Welfare Act of 1996 and the Unorganized Workers Social Security Act – funds were available but inadequately used.

It involves establishing a committee to oversee and administer social security and welfare benefits for workers in specific sectors.
Does not address employment relations as such. More appropriate for self-employed informal workers.

Neglected Employment Relationship: (All Karnataka and Rajasthan Acts and CSS, 2020)
- It absolves employers of legal obligations.
- Hampers labour law application and worker protections (occupational safety and health, leave entitlements, and the right to collective bargaining cannot be applied).

Partial Welfare: Schemes in Karnataka and Rajasthan Acts lack comprehensive benefits (do not replace institutional social security benefits such as provident fund, gratuity, or maternity benefits).
Lack of Protections: The Bill omits minimum wage and working hours; Section 16 is insufficient.

Section 16 of the bill discusses income security regarding payment deductions but does not guarantee a minimum income, wage entitlements, or revenue sharing between aggregators and gig workers. Section 16(2) only requires weekly payments, without specifying a minimum amount.

To know more > India and Gig Economy.