Gig Workers Strike And Platform Capitalism

2025 ended with a nationwide strike by delivery workers demanding fair wages, transparent payment systems, and a ban on the “10-minute delivery” model. 

About the Gig Workers Strike

• Scale of Participation: Over 40,000 gig workers participated in the earlier strike, affecting 50–60% of the delivery sector business.
• Aim: The strike aimed to send a strong message to “platform capitalists” to reconsider exploitative business practices.
  • New Year’s Eve was chosen strategically despite being a peak earning period for workers.
• Digital Coordination: WhatsApp and other social media platforms helped workers coordinate the strike.
• Rising Public Support: Customers expressed solidarity by posting supportive messages online.

About Gig Workers

• Definition: A labour market characterised by short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs.
• NITI Aayog Data: India’s gig workforce is expected to expand to 2.35 crore by 2029–30.
• Shift: Customers are shifting loyalty from local vendors to apps because of “convenience.”

About Platform Capitalism

• Nature of Ownership: Modern capitalists own the digital platform (intermediary) rather than the physical assets, extracting high commissions from both consumers and providers.
• Control: Platform companies control labour through digital intermediation rather than direct employment.
• App-based Systems: Workers’ livelihoods are tied to systems that determine access to work and income.

The Trap- 10 Minute Delivery

• Algorithmic Labour Management: Platforms use algorithmic controls and customer rating systems to regulate worker behaviour. Delivery targets such as 10- or 12-minute delivery create extreme performance pressure.
• Punitive Enforcement Mechanisms: Failure to meet deadlines leads to penalties, including the blocking of workers’ platform IDs.
  • Blocking excludes workers from accessing work opportunities entirely.
• Pay Structure and Intensified Risk: Workers are paid per order (Precarity) rather than on an hourly or daily basis.
  • Hence, speed directly determines earnings and job stability, leading to intensified risks of road accidents, injuries, stress, and burnout.

The Partner Trap

• Employment Classification: Delivery workers are classified as “delivery partners” instead of employees. This classification denies them core labour protections and social security benefits.
• Conditions of Work and Earnings: Delivery Workers are self-employed and self-exploited. 
  • They face long working hours and low take-home pay. 
  • Fuel costs and vehicle EMIs further reduce earnings.
• Weak Collective Bargaining: Dispersed workplaces and a fluid workforce weaken worker solidarity. These conditions obstruct effective collective bargaining and unionisation.
• Challenge in the Gig Economy Strikes: Gig workers are dispersed across streets and zones, which makes collective action and unity difficult.

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Way Forward

• Strengthening the Regulatory Framework: There is a need to enact and enforce laws to curb digital platforms’ algorithmic coercion of gig workers.
• Implementation of Social Security Code, 2020: The Social Security Code, 2020, must be implemented at a faster pace to extend social security benefits to gig and platform workers.
• Replication of the Rajasthan Model (2023): The Rajasthan Platform-Based Gig Workers Act, 2023, provides a model by establishing a welfare board and a welfare fund. The welfare fund is financed through a cess on platform transactions.
• Ensuring Fair Wages: There is a need to move away from a purely piece-rate payment system. A minimum base pay should be ensured to provide income stability to gig workers.

Conclusion

The 2025 gig workers strike exposed precarity, algorithmic control, and exploitative pay in platform work. Expanding workforce and rising risks call for regulatory reforms, social security, fair wages, and replicable welfare models like Rajasthan’s 2023 Act.

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