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From Hope to Hardship: The Reality of Platform Work in India
Unsplash / @hdbernd
Almost every day, platform workers in India face disrespectful, classist behaviours from their customers and from the platform companies they depend on for their work. They have doors shut on their faces, they are denied access to apartment elevators, and platforms treat them like they are dispensable. Venkat*, a courier working for a logistics and delivery service, knows this kind of disrespect only too well.
Venkat is 32 and from Ariyalur, a district in Tamil Nadu. When he moved to Chennai 15 years ago in search of work, he found a job as a driver for a digital flex printing company, where he worked for 14 years. In 2022, Venkat got married. Sadly, Venkat’s wife fell ill soon after, and his job schedule and limited pay made it difficult to take good care of her. He also had the added pressure of having to think about his ailing parents back home.
Venkat saw many men from his hometown come to Chennai to work as couriers for a logistics and delivery platform. Hoping to earn a better income, Venkat decided to buy a Tata Ace (a mini truck) and join the platform too. Since he did not have the funds to buy the truck outright, he convinced his father back home to sell their cattle. With the money from that sale, and from pawning his wife’s jewels for a small loan, he managed to purchase a mini truck for the job.
In his first month on the platform, Venkat earned around INR 50,000 and was happy. He spent half of those earnings on fuel and maintenance for his truck, and the rest he used to pay for his rent, food and wife’s medical treatment, while still managing to send INR 5,000 to his parents back home.
But Venkat soon realised that the conditions of work on the platform weren’t quite as good as initially promised. He discovered that he could not count on the platform for much support. Once, a customer demanded that Venkat transport a 20-long pipe in his truck. When he refused to load it, owing to the vehicle capacity and permit conditions, the customer cancelled the ride. Minutes later, Venkat found his ID blocked because of the customer’s negative feedback, rendering him unable to work on the platform. He called customer support hoping to explain his situation but found their responses unsatisfactory. “Customer support has a fixed response for every situation,” Venkat explained, “and in many cases, the response arrives hours later.”
In the eleven months since he joined the platform, Venkat has yet to see the same level of earnings he managed in his first month. This is in part because the number of jobs allocated by the platform has declined in recent months. Despite working fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, he now earns only around INR 35,000 a month, half of which goes to fuel and maintenance. That means he is left with only INR 17,500 to cover his remaining costs and support his family.
Venkat regrets leaving his first job to join the digital economy and regrets selling his father’s cattle. He wishes he had continued at his old job where the owner may have given him a raise if he had only asked. Nonetheless, he continues working day and night to earn back the amount he spent on buying the truck. After paying off this loan, he plans to return home and start rearing cattle again, which he says is “more dignified” work.
Unfortunately, Venkat’s story isn’t new or unique. Since 2019, the Fairwork India team has produced almost 60 ratings of platform companies’ working conditions. The average score of companies rated over these six years is 3/10, meaning the majority of platforms have been unable to evidence that they provide even close to a minimum standard of fair work according to the five Fairwork principles of fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation. The average score of courier logistics companies rated in India over this period is even lower at 2.6/10.
Through this research, the Fairwork India team has spoken to many platform workers like Venkat who have migrated from small towns to bigger cities in the hopes of improving their lives. Many of their stories follow the same pattern: they join a platform that promises good earnings, make a decent wage for the first few months, then experience a steady decline in their income and report receiving little support from the platform when it is needed.
Fairwork research shows that nothing is inevitable about poor working conditions in the digital economy. By evaluating companies against measures of fairness and collaborating with platforms, regulators, consumers, and worker groups, the project aims to improve the livelihoods of millions of workers in India and around the world.
The next round of ratings from Fairwork India will be published soon, so stay tuned to Fairwork’s social media channels for the latest updates. You can find us on X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
*The worker’s name has been changed to protect his identity.