The platform economy and the precarisation of food delivery work in the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from India

Q2 Business, Management and Accounting

Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation Pub Date : 2021-01-01 DOI:10.13169/workorgalaboglob.15.1.0011

Parwez, Ranjan

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引用次数: 15

Abstract

This study aims to explore work precarity in the platform economy from the perspective of food delivery workers. It also tries to contextualise work precarity in COVID-19 times. With the digital boom, food-based platform aggregators have emerged as a new workspace for food delivery workers in India. Food delivery workers working for platform aggregators are termed 'independent contractors' and 'delivery partners' to avoid legal issues of employer-employee relations;this enables a substantial reduction in transaction costs. Despite the huge number of food delivery workers, they are unable to organise into collectives. The platform economy is emerging as a sector offering new work opportunities, but at the same time it is plagued by low wages (and benefit), absence (or lack) of welfare measures, and digital controls contributing to the process of precarisation. The COVID-19 pandemic and resultant lockdown have aggravated the precarity of work for food delivery workers. It has led to the loss of jobs and incomes, and increased health risks, stigmas and occupation distress. Further, autonomy and flexibility should not come at the cost of the most basic social security and protection. This precarious situation calls for affirmative action from policymakers and platform aggregators.

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2019冠状病毒病大流行期间的平台经济和外卖工作不稳定:来自印度的证据

本研究旨在从外卖工人的角度探讨平台经济中的工作不稳定性。它还试图将COVID-19时期的工作不稳定性置于背景下。随着数字热潮的兴起，基于食品的平台聚合器已经成为印度外卖工人的新工作场所。为平台聚合商工作的送餐工人被称为“独立承包商”和“送餐合作伙伴”，以避免雇主与雇员关系的法律问题;这使得交易成本大幅降低。尽管外卖工人数量庞大，但他们无法组织成集体。平台经济正在成为一个提供新工作机会的行业，但与此同时，它也受到低工资(和福利)、缺乏(或缺乏)福利措施以及数字控制的困扰，这些都加剧了不稳定的过程。2019冠状病毒病大流行及其引发的封锁加剧了外卖工人的工作不稳定性。它导致失去工作和收入，并增加了健康风险、耻辱和职业困境。此外，自主权和灵活性不应以牺牲最基本的社会保障和保护为代价。这种不稳定的局面需要政策制定者和平台聚合者采取平权行动。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation Business, Management and Accounting-Industrial Relations

CiteScore

3.70

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation aims to: -Provide a single home for articles which specifically address issues relating to the changing international division of labour and the restructuring of work in a global knowledge-based economy. -Bring together the results of empirical research, both qualitative and quantitative, with theoretical analyses in order to inform the development of new interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the restructuring of work, organisational structures and labour in a global context. -Be global in scope, with a particular emphasis on attracting contributions from developing countries as well as from Europe, North America and other developed regions. -Encourage a dialogue between university-based researchers and their counterparts in international and national government agencies, independent research institutes, trade unions and civil society as well as other policy makers. Subject to the requirements of scholarly peer review, it is open to submissions from contributors working outside the academic sphere and encourages an accessible style of writing in order to facilitate this goal. -Complement, rather than compete with, existing discipline-based journals. -Bring to the attention of English-speaking readers relevant articles originally published in other languages.