South Central 56: 10-minute delivery at what cost? Understanding gig worker rights

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South Central

South Central 56: 10-minute delivery at what cost? Understanding gig worker rights

In this episode of South Central, hosts Dhanya Rajendran and Pooja Prasanna explore the gig worker strike and what it reveals about labour rights, and preview the upcoming elections in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

By:The News Minute

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In this episode of South Central, hosts Dhanya Rajendran and Pooja Prasanna first discuss the strike by gig workers on December 25th and 31st, what their demands are and whether the existing framework of payouts and stipulated minimum delivery time violates their rights.

The hosts are joined by Shaikh Salahuddin, founder and president of Telangana Gig And Platform Workers Union, and Maitreyi Krishnan, a lawyer and president of the All India Lawyers Association for Justice.

Shaikh Salahuddin first explains why they chose these dates for the strike. “We chose those dates as order pressure would be very high. Our target is to pressurise the aggregator companies to fulfil our demands. We waited five days after the December 25th strike for stakeholders to discuss our problems, but nobody came forward. On the 31st, we had to go on strike again to disrupt the flow of deliveries because the year-end would see a huge surge in demand,” he says.

Shaikh adds that platforms came up with a one-day incentive to cover up for this, which he says is a tactic to manipulate personnel into working. He added that platforms used money and muscle power to thwart the strike.

“We have five demands– the old payout system can be implemented, but ten-minute delivery leads to several road accidents and deaths, so this must be stopped, and delivery personnel's IDs are blocked without any hearing and upon simple complaint from the customer. The algorithm must also give some control to the personnel, and we want some dignity in the process. Personnel do not have places to wait at restaurants or stores, and proper washroom facilities are also absent. We want these basics to be fulfilled, not something unrealistic or over the top,” Salahuddin further says.

Maitreyi says that this happens because the employer-employee relationship between the gig workers and their employers is not acknowledged. “When you acknowledge this, you can see that what they demand is the most basic labour rights. There is most definitely an employer-employee relationship, and the state must intervene to enforce it. This veil of denial must not be allowed to thrive because they violate the rights of gig workers,” she says.

In the second part of the discussion, the hosts delve into the upcoming elections in Kerala and Tamil Nadu and what alliances will fly and which of them will likely fail. The hosts are joined by senior journalist Dr RK Radhakrishnan.

All this and more.

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Audio Timecodes

00:00:00- Introduction

00:03:10 - Headlines

00:12:03 - Gig Workers Strike