Ride-hailing giants Ola and Uber, along with logistics management platform Porter, have found themselves at the bottom of a recent Fairwork India ranking, scoring zero in terms of fair work practices.
The report based on the rankings evaluates digital platforms on five key principles: fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation.
"The scores in this report rely on data collected using the Fairwork Framework, which includes pay, contracts, reprenstation and more. Following desk research, the Fairwork India team interviewed 440 workers from the 11 platforms in five cities and collected evidence from the managements of platforms who engaged with us," the report said.
While Ola, Uber and Porter scored the least, BigBasket, Swiggy, Urban Company and Zomato came on top of the list, scoring six points each. E-commerce giant, Flipkart scored one.
This time, the report has evaluated around 11 platforms and only two out of them, BigBasket and Urban Company, were awarded the first point under Fair Pay for instituting a minimum wage policy that guaranteed all their workers earn at least the hourly local minimum wage after factoring in work-related costs.
No platform earned the second point under Fair Pay, which requires platforms to commit to and ensure a local living wage after work-related costs or provide sufficient evidence that all workers earn at least this amount.
"In addition to ensuring that payments are made in full, and on time, both platforms have a publicly
available wage policy that commits to ensuring their workers will earn at least the hourly local minimum wage
after factoring in work-related costs such as fuel, vehicle maintenance insurance, and data," the report said.
The Fairwork India team is headed by the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP) at the
International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B), with partners at the University of Oxford. Every platform receives a score out of 10. A point is awarded only when there is sufficient evidence
that the platform fulfils the conditions for each principle, the report said.
Fairwork points are given through a network of researchers rating the platforms in 38 countries across five continents. In every country, Fairwork collaborates closely with workers, platforms, advocates and policymakers to promote a fairer future of platform work.
Amazon Flex, bigbasket, BluSmart, Swiggy, Urban Company, Zepto and Zomato were awarded the first point under Fair Conditions for providing adequate safety equipment, and periodic safety training to workers on their platforms.
Despite the rise in platform worker collectivisation across the country over the past six years, there
was insufficient evidence from any platform to show willingness to recognise a collective body of workers.
"Consequently, no platform could be awarded a point for this principle this year," the report said.
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