Context:

The Chief Minister of Rajasthan announced earlier this year that the State would set up India’s first welfare fund called the Rajasthan Platform-Based Gig Workers Social Security and Welfare Fund. 

Positive Move:

• This is the first real instance of a regulatory move to unburden gig and platform workers’ vulnerabilities since the Code on Social Security was passed in 2020. 
• The code came amid the COVID-19 pandemic when platform workers became the backbone of metropolitan logistics, acting to serve customers, and working with and for State governments in their food relief schemes.

A Tripartite Institution:

• The tripartite relationship has to be built to force employers to acknowledge that they have informal workers; for workers to collectivize to bring a common voice to their concerns; and for the state to liaise and mediate this relationship.
• In formal employment:
  • The board, a tripartite institution with representatives from bureaucracy, employers or clients, and workers’ unions or associations, exists as a workaround. 
  • This relationship is meant to ensure quick communication in moments of failure where workers or employers do not get their due, and enable better communication between the parties. 

• In informal employment:
  • There is no ‘straightforward’ way to deliver benefits since on-paper employment relationships are missing.
  • Therefore, the state also does not ‘find’ workers at work to give them benefits. 

Tied down in the specifics:

• Various key protection schemes such as life and disability cover, health and maternity benefits, old age protection and education will only be started and funded by the central government, which can decide which States will get these central schemes, their duration and what kind of gig and platform worker will be eligible for schemes and programmes. 
• This restriction could be further exacerbated by a lack or shortage of funding.

How to address? 

• To address this, the code mandates platforms to share 1%-2% of their revenue for these new schemes, answering a key question for central and State governments as to who pays for gig and platform worker protections.

Unanswered:

• Questions about how the Rajasthan government made the financial allocation of ₹200 crore, where this has come from, or how platforms will be charged with their financial responsibility remain unanswered.

The Challenge ahead:

• Time will tell how a Gig and Platform Worker Board will fare when gig and platform workers are time-poor considering that they often work for piece-meal wages that are structured through hourly or daily time commitments to platforms. 
• This has been a significant challenge for collectivisation attempts. 
• The Code on Social Security does not consider how to handle the labour rights of gig and platform workers; rather, it only seeks to give them protections from vulnerable aspects of their work.

Conclusion:

• Nonetheless, the initiation of the board is a big win for platform workers and unions who/which have been fighting to get their issues heard. 
• The fact that the board is being set up before 2024 stands out in the midst of political chatter that States will not implement the new Codes until after the general election in 2024.

News Source: The Hindu