Zomato co-founder Deepinder Goyal pledged to “leave no stone unturned” to improve the working conditions after the food delivery firm found itself at the bottom of Fairwork India Ratings, which has ranked the platforms that offer “work on-demand via apps.” The Fairwork India team had conducted a study on how platform work is perceived and experienced by workers on these platforms.
The study focussed on fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation, awarding one point for meeting the basic standard and an additional point for achieving a higher standard. While Urban Company and Flipkart were the best-performing companies with eight and seven points respectively, Swiggy, Uber, and Zomato languished at the bottom with one point each.
According to the report titled ‘Fairwork India Ratings 2020: Labour Standards in the Platform Economy’, workers of all the eleven companies included in the study have little to no social security. While some platforms provide accident insurance, workers were unclear of the procedures to make those claims, the study suggested.
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It highlighted that only two platforms, Urban Company and Flipkart, were able to demonstrate that additional measures were taken to actively improve working conditions. The report also underlined that workers were often unclear who was responsible for their working conditions and for the payment of wages as the companies are increasingly relying on labour recruited from subcontractors.
{{/usCountry}}It highlighted that only two platforms, Urban Company and Flipkart, were able to demonstrate that additional measures were taken to actively improve working conditions. The report also underlined that workers were often unclear who was responsible for their working conditions and for the payment of wages as the companies are increasingly relying on labour recruited from subcontractors.
{{/usCountry}}“Zomato ranked at the bottom of 2020 Fairwork India scores. We knew we had things to work on, but we didn’t know that there is so much room for improvement,” tweeted Goyal.
“All of us here at @zomato take full responsibility for our abysmal scores in this area, and we will leave no stone unturned to perform better in these rankings next year,” he added.
Here’s how the companies fared on the ranking:
1. Urban Company - 8 points
2. Flipkart (Ekart) - 7 points
3. Dunzo - 4 points
4. Grofers - 4 points
5. Amazon (ATS) - 2 points
6, Bigbasket - 2 points
7. Housejoy - 2 points
8. Ola - 2 points
9. Swiggy - 1 point
10. Uber - 1 point
11. Zomato - 1 point
The Fairwork India team is led by the Centre for IT and Public Policy (CITAPP) at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIITB). It also partners experts from the University of Oxford and the University of Manchester.