Практика Shadowing: Why gig workers are protesting around the world - What in the World podcast, BBC World Service - Изучайте разговорный английский с YouTube

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Hey, I'm Iqra and this is What in the World from the BBC World Service.

Whether you're getting some food delivered, maybe taking a ride somewhere, chances are, wherever you are in the world, you've probably relied on a gig worker.

Those are people who get paid per job and use an app to get their work.

in India, loads of gig workers have been protesting over their working conditions.

They say there's too much pressure being put on them.

So in this episode, we're going to hear about those protests in India.

Take a look at the bigger picture around the world and figure out if any changes have come about from people protesting, too.

We wanted to hear from some of you guys on this, too.

Why you're doing gig work. There can be some upsides to it too.

So here's Mu'nisah Ujima.

She is a food delivery driver in the US.

So I have been unemployed for about a year and a half I believe and I think that was kind of the main thing that thrusted me into being a gig worker.

Like, sometimes I'll work like a whole ten hour shift.

Like from 6am all the way to about 5pm. I don't like driving at night.

Sometimes I'll work like a block a day, like where I'll do like, just the lunch rush, which is like 11 to about like two p.m..

So day to day, it's kind of just depends.

Some weeks I work like every single day, some weeks I'm like, okay, I just feel like picking up a little one two shift.

The pro is the flexibility, the fact that when I'm ready to work, I can get up to work.

However, of course, the cons are, you know, car maintenance, not having like, insurance. And then of course, there's no benefits.

You can't take any sick days and you're basically covering your own expenses, essentially.

But I don't know, I just feel like the flexibility and freedom and the fact that I get to be outside sometimes with especially working in a corporate office, I was an admin assistant prior to this, so working in a corporate office, it was like I was just sitting here in one place for eight hours a day.

There can be some unpredictability with being a gig worker, because some days I will work three hours and I'll make $100 or $200 and I'm like, set, you know what I'm saying?

And then there's other days where it's just like, really slow.

You have to be self-reliant and kind of being able to self manage because you're creating your own schedule and you're getting up when you want to get up. I think you have to be very disciplined.

Like, hey, I said I was going to get up at 8am and I'm going to go out for three hours.

I have to get up and go out for three hours.

So let's start off with the situation in India.

Meghna Kanwar is a journalist in Delhi. She's on the line right now.

Hey, Meghna. Hi. How are you?

I'm not bad. Meghna, tell us a little bit about these strikes.

So the gig economy in India is pretty large.

There are about 12 million people associated in this economy right now, and we are expecting it to, you know, almost double by the end of this decade.

So they are working in various capacities as riders, you know, delivery partners, etc.

So the strike came in during the last part of December last year.

It happened when a lot of workers, you know, demanded a better fare for the number of hours they were working and for the distance that they were covering and they demanded, you know, a better social structure because they were feeling like they don't have any kind of safety net in this profession.

Yeah. And you followed a gig worker around in Delhi, right?

What was that like? What did you see?

When we see gig workers working all throughout the city every day, we don't get to understand that how tough it is on road because, you know, they are all the time monitoring orders on their devices as well as they're also riding their vehicles.

But when we see that a delivery partner is making a delivery, they just take into account the money that they get is just for from like the restaurant to the drop location.

But what if they are like three kilometres away from the restaurant and they have to drive to the restaurant first to pick it up?

So that labour is not taken into account at all, and they are not paid for that time and for that effort.

The person that I was following for the entire day was a food delivery partner, and he himself had no time to have food on the road.

And he had like his dinner at five pm and he's been doing this for five years now.

He's just 24, by the way. So he started when he was 19.

So just tell us a little bit more about the kind of pay and then the penalties that drivers can face.

So whenever, for example, the guy that he we were following was getting an getting a delivery for around two to 3km, he was being given 20 to ₹30 for it, which would be less than $0.50. There's so much traffic.

Then delay might happen. And if delay happens there compensation is cut.

One of the main sticking points in these strikes in India was the ten minute delivery guarantee.

And workers pushing back against that as well.

So actually the ten minute thing was just like a marketing gimmick.

So only the quick commerce companies used to use that tagline, ten minute delivery, so that they could attract more customers.

What sort of things have the government said about that?

I know they've intervened, right? Yes, yes, yes, they have intervened.

Actually that happened after the strikes only.

I mean, it became a very large discourse in the country and even in the Parliament.

A lot of leaders of the opposition talked about it, and that is when it, you know, sort of got the spotlight.

So when all this discourse happened, the government, the Labour Ministry just told these brands and these e-commerce companies to take back that label.

Now it's off the charts, like the ten minute delivery is not there.

But I don't know how much, you know, it has changed on ground because they still sort of, you know, have to do as much deliveries as they can throughout the day so that they earn more.

If they do a certain number of deliveries, they get more incentives on it. For example, if they are doing 20 deliveries a day, they get like a few rupees more on it, and if they do 25, then a few more.

It's like a bonus point that gets added whenever they make more deliveries.

So that is the reason why they, you know, rush on the road.

There's traffic. And a lot of times we see here in India, delivery partners meet with a lot of accidents.

But at least I mean they got hurt when, you know this discourse started after this strike. So that's that's really nice.

So we're getting an idea there of these protests and how they might have affected/put pressure on the Indian government.

But what about the platforms themselves that these workers are using?

The whole branding that they took back, you know, that, no more ten minute deliveries.

I think that was a pretty big implication of this strike on the brands as well, especially and also during that time - so these strikes came in the later half of December during New Year's time.

You know, it's very festive here in India as well.

So at that time they also increased the incentives of workers.

So, you know, so that they might feel a little more, fair and more balanced in terms of the labour and hours they'll be putting in that time.

So now the quick commerce companies are coming up with better policies.

But how much will change on ground is what we have to still see.

Yeah. And it sounds like gig work is changing Indian society in the Indian economy.

Yeah. So a few years ago, the gig economy, especially when it comes to quick commerce companies, was not very prevalent in India.

But in front of my eyes only, it has grown exponentially because now we have so many companies in place which are going to deliver whatever you want, be it medicine, food, any kind of help, domestic help, groceries, anything can come to your doorstep within a few minutes.

So I think now the people, Indian people, especially in metropolitan cities, are also getting used to it, used to the, you know, comfort of their home and getting things done.

So I think with time this is just going to upscale a lot more.

That is why, you know, there needs to be better laws as well, because if that much amount of your population is going to be included in one sector.

So it definitely needs to be, you know, taken care of.

Yeah. It'll be interesting to see how this area of the workforce in India continues to adapt and change as well.

Meghna, thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you so much. It was very nice talking to you.

Thank you. Okay. So let's find out a little bit more from Nathalie Jimenez.

She is the BBC business reporter in New York. Hey, Natalia.

Hi. So we heard about this situation in India there with the protests.

But where else have gig workers been protesting?

So it's happening across continents.

Gig workers have been organising, striking, challenging those legal frameworks that kind of haven't caught up with their job yet.

For example, in the UK, Uber drivers pursued a case all the way up to the Supreme Court, to the UK Supreme Court.

In 2021, that court ruled that Uber drivers should be classified as workers rather than independent contractors.

That was after a hefty legal battle and that legal distinction matters because it grants them rights that they otherwise wouldn't have.

And then that's reflected in other continents, too, in Brazil, delivery drivers organised, coordinated app shutdowns demanding better pay and conditions.

And, you know, we've seen that pattern kind of across Europe and Latin America and Africa and Asia.

Yeah. And so just tell us a little bit more about the kinds of things the gig workers are calling for across continents.

The first and most obvious demand is higher and more predictable pay.

So basically, according to the International Labor Organization, which is basically a big organization that tracks labour around the world.

The quality of it, how much of it there is, what type.

And so their findings were that many location based gig workers earned less than the local minimum wage in those countries.

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When you subtract those extra expenses - so, for example, the cost of fuel, or, you know, health coverage, those things aren't usually offered to them as benefits.

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Another major issue is algorithm transparency.

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So again, these apps are ruled by certain algorithms.

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So workers often say that they don't understand why, if you're working for Uber for example, as a delivery driver, why their ratings change or why the amount of work that they get changes.

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So I think the last kind of point that usually comes up in these types of debates is employment classification.

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So some workers want full employee status.

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They don't want to be considered just freelancers because that doesn't really come with any benefits.

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The debate then, is, the whole point of these apps is that you have flexibility.

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Now, how much do you want to add to that?

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Maybe that's a little constraining for certain people.

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They just want it as a side gig. They don't need all these extra benefits.

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But the reality is that gig work is often becoming people's full time work.

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And so when it comes to people protesting, are there any signs that they're working?

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Are their working conditions changing because of the protests?

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It's hard to quantify the direct cause and effect of whether or not these protests are kind of bringing in change.

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But the EU strengthened rules around the transparency of certain algorithms and human oversight, so that gig workers essentially would understand better what algorithm rules their job.

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And then France and Italy have experimented with forms of collective representation, think like unions for gig workers.

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So there's definitely been a response from government.

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And what about when it comes to the companies then, there's been pressure put on them.

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Have they changed any of their regulations as well?

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Absolutely.

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A lot of companies have implemented quite kind of big measures to address a lot of the complaints or the concerns that were put forward.

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For example, in California, Uber and Lyft, two kind of ride share platforms that I'm sure we all know well, agreed to allow their drivers to form unions.

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In a completely different part of the world too, in Australia, Uber Eats and DoorDash, reached a deal with the workers union, the Transport Workers union, to give these gig workers minimum pay standards.

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It's been so good to hear about. Thank you so much, Nathalie.

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Thank you so much for having me. And that's it for today.

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Are there any other protests going on in your part of the world that we should be talking about?

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Remember, you can comment below at any time.

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Like and subscribe too. But for now I'm Iqra.

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This is What in the World from the BBC World Service and I'll see you guys soon. Bye.

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