What protections does the Centre’s draft Social Security Code offer gig workers?

The Centre’s draft rules under the new Social Security Code mandates the employers to ensure welfare benefits if the gig and platform workers have been engaged at least for 90 days

• Centre's draft rules propose welfare benefits for gig workers after 90-120 days
• Gig workers' strike had negligible impact on food delivery platforms' operations
• India's gig workforce may rise to 23.5 million by 2029-30, per NITI Aayog

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In the last few days, gig workers have dominated the public discourse over their demands for fair wage and safe working conditions, apart from other welfare benefits.

The Centre’s draft rules under the new Social Security Code mandates the employers to ensure welfare benefits if the gig and platform workers have been engaged at least for 90 days, a report by the Times of India said on January 2. In case, the workers have been engaged with multiple platforms, the threshold for social benefits have been proposed at 120 days, the paper said.

The draft rules have been released for public comments.

Under the proposed rules, the worker is considered to be working for the platform since the day they start earning, TOI said. Moreover, if the worker is live on multiple platforms in any particular day, the number of work days will be counted cumulatively. For example, if a worker is live on three apps in a given day, it will be counted as three working days.

In addition, the workers associated directly or through third-party entities will be considered an employee of the platform, the paper said. Under the new labour code, gig workers have to be provided with health, life and accident insurance and will be registered under the Ayushman Bharat scheme.

Several gig and platform workers’ unions had called for a protest on December 31 to demand better payouts and improved working conditions.

According to Gig & Platform Service Workers Union (GIPSWU), over 1 lakh workers from 22 cities joined the strike, including 14,000 of its members from major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and others.

However, food delivery aggregators Swiggy, Zomato and magicpin on Thursday said they recorded a massive surge in orders on New Year's Eve, even as a section of gig workers went on strike demanding better pay-outs and improved working conditions, with the agitation having a negligible impact on their operations.

In a post on X, Eternal Founder Deepinder Goyal said, "Zomato and Blinkit delivered at a record pace yesterday, unaffected by calls for strikes that many of us heard over the past few days. Support from local law enforcement helped keep the small number of miscreants in check, enabling over 4.5 lakh delivery partners across both platforms to deliver more than 75 lakh orders (all-time high) to over 63 lakh customers during the day." Anshoo Sharma, Founder and CEO of magicpin, said that the company saw "no impact" of the strike called by gig workers' unions.

According to estimates, there are over 12.7 million gig workers in India, with government think tank NITI Aayog saying the gig workforce is expected to rise to 23.5 million by 2029-30. India's third-largest food delivery platform magicpin said lakhs of orders poured in every hour across metros on New Year's Eve.