The new labour codes do little to provide better pay and definitive rights to platform workers. Comment (200 Words)
Refer - The Hindu
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 3 years
KEY POINTS
· The new Code on Social Security allows a platform worker to be defined by their vulnerability — not their labour, nor the vulnerabilities of platform work.
· The three new labour codes passed by Parliament recently acknowledge platform and gig workers as new occupational categories in the making, in a bid to keep India’s young workforce secure as it embraces ‘new kinds of work’, like delivery, in the digital economy.
Defining an ‘employee’
· The Code on Wages, 2019, tries to expand this idea by using ‘wages’ as the primary definition of who an ‘employee’ is. The wage relationship is an important relationship in the world of work, especially in the context of a large informal economy. Even so, the terms ‘gig worker’, ‘platform worker’ and ‘gig economy’ appear elsewhere in the Code on Social Security.
· Platform delivery people can claim benefits, but not labour rights. This distinction makes them beneficiaries of State programmes. This does not allow them to go to court to demand better and stable pay, or regulate the algorithms that assign the tasks. This also means that the government or courts cannot pull up platform companies for their choice of pay, or how long they ask people to work.
No guarantees
· In the Code on Social Security, 2020, platform workers are now eligible for benefits like maternity benefits, life and disability cover, old age protection, provident fund, employment injury benefits, and so on. However, eligibility does not mean that the benefits are guaranteed.
· None of these are secure benefits, which means that from time to time, the Central government can formulate welfare schemes that cover these aspects of personal and work security, but they are not guaranteed. Actualising these benefits will depend on the political will at the Central and State government-levels and how unions elicit political support.
· For some states like Karnataka, where a platform-focused social security scheme was in the making last year, this will possibly offer some financial assistance by the Centre. However, that is not assured.
· The language in the Code is open enough to imply that platform companies can be called upon to contribute either solely or with the government to some of these schemes. But it does not force the companies to contribute towards benefits or be responsible for workplace issues.
