Not sunny side up: Vendors, gig workers bear the brunt of peaking heat

Bengaluru: As rising temperatures in Bengaluru become a growing concern, lakhs of people who work outdoors for their livelihoods are facing potential danger.

Street vendors, construction workers, and gig workers, including app-based delivery partners, make up a sizeable portion of the city’s outdoor workforce.

MD Inayat Ali, president of the Karnataka App-based Workers’ Union, said Bengaluru has over 1.5 lakh people of his ilk, each riding at least 80–100 km daily.

"On a regular day, when the temperature is cool, we deliver 20–25 orders per day,” he said. “But, in this heat, the number of daily orders has dropped. It’s difficult to deliver more than 15 orders in a day."

Srinivas G, vice-president of the Karnataka Food Delivery Workers Association, said that extreme heat not only affects gig workers’ health, but also impacts their families due to reduced income. “The incentives we receive are based on the number of deliveries,” he noted.

Explaining the differences between food delivery and e-commerce delivery, Ali said, “Food delivery is usually one-to-one, where the delivery partner picks up an order from a specific restaurant and delivers it to a specific customer. Incentives are provided based on the number of orders.

"In contrast, e-commerce delivery involves picking up multiple orders from a warehouse at once and delivering them across various locations.”

According to him, food delivery workers face greater challenges in the heat, as their peak hours extend from breakfast to lunch and dinner.

Last week, the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) submitted a memorandum to the government, seeking half-day work with a weekly off for municipal workers. The memorandum also urged the government to provide drinking water, ORS, and buttermilk, along with eye shades, hats, and umbrellas, to protect municipal workers from extreme heat exposure.

Leelavathi S, General Secretary of the Karnataka State Construction Workers’ Central Union, said the union is planning to submit a memorandum to the Labour Department by the end of the month, demanding regulated working hours for construction workers.

"Many women workers avoid drinking water due to the lack of washroom facilities. In this heat, dehydration only worsens their condition,” she said. “Hence, we plan to demand that the government restrict construction work hours to 6 am–11 am and 4 pm–7 pm,” she noted.