Gig Workers Law Deepens Industrial Democracy

Recently, the state of Rajasthan enacted the Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023. The long title of the Act sets out three functions that the law is meant to perform: Constituting a welfare board and a welfare fund for platform-based gig workers; registering gig workers, aggregators, and primary employers; and providing social security to gig workers.

- Gautam Bhatia

Rajasthan’s law is the latest in a series of global efforts to regulate platform/gig work and to protect the rights of gig workers. The “atypical” character of gig work — where workers and consumers of services interact with each other through an online “app” — has allowed gig work companies to evade the obligations of labour law by classifying their workers as “partners” and whose terms and conditions of work are defined only by a contract. Over the past few years, many legal battles have taken place over gig companies’ efforts to “misclassify” workers in this way; while workers have often been successful (though not always), and gained important labour law rights through litigation, there is also an understanding that the specific nature of gig work is best addressed through legislation.