Occupational safety vs 10-minute deliveries

Grocery delivery platforms are vying for the lowest delivery times, with Zomato most recently promising 10-minute deliveries. This dangerous expectation from delivery persons poses a direct risk to their life and personal safety. It’s time labour law reform prioritises the occupational safety of delivery persons.

Many online delivery platforms are notorious for their terrible work culture with the delivery partners facing job insecurity and no average base pay. They face harsh pay deductions if they don’t meet the incredibly low delivery times mandated and are forced to work unhealthily long hours. They’re paid extremely low amounts and incur several out of pocket expenses such as fuel, phones, data plans, repairs and company uniforms.

The competition for lower delivery times is exacerbating this issue. Swiggy’s Instamart promised to deliver groceries in 30 minutes, Grofers promised to deliver in 20, and most recently, Zepto and Zomato decided to promise delivery in 10 minutes!

Online grocery stores shave off delivery times by setting up several warehouses or “dark stores” across the city. More the warehouses within a 2-5 km radius of the delivery location, the lower the delivery time is likely to be. For instance, Zepto, a Mumbai-based startup has set up a network of 100 dark stores across the cities it operates in and claims that it optimizes fast deliveries.

However, Indian roads are crowded and have unruly traffic with little regard for traffic rules. Bikes zipping on the pedestrian footpath and cars shooting across red lights are a common sight. Residential colonies are complex to navigate through, high rise buildings often have vigilant security guards who take several minutes to verify identity, not to mention attempting to find houses located on confusing roads and narrow alleys. None of this is designed for optimisation. It causes a huge physical and mental toll on the delivery persons, and needlessly endangers their lives.

Delivery persons are not considered employees but independent contractors. The Code on Social Security, 2020, introduced in 2020, recognises the terms gig and platform workers. It defines platform work as a non-traditional work arrangement where individuals use an online platform to access organizations or other individuals to solve specific problems or provide specific services.

However, delivery executives are in a unique position: They are treated as employees as platforms that exercise considerable control over how the work is assigned. Delivery partners are constantly monitored to ensure that the task is done in a specific manner with time limits, a mandatory uniform when delivering, and no-contact delivery after the pandemic. They neither have the benefits granted to employees such as job security, non-hazardous working environments and adequate living wages nor do they have the autonomy afforded to independent contractors.

In 2020, four labour codes related to wages, social security, occupational safety and industrial relations were enacted, bringing in some much-anticipated labour law reform in the country. The recognition of platform workers in these codes was considered to be a momentous change. Only the Code of Social Security, 2020 includes platform workers.

What the code provides for is mandating the Union government to notify suitable welfare schemes for platform workers that pertain to life and disability cover, health and maternity benefit etc. The aggregator i.e. the platform itself is not expected to contribute more than 5% of the amount payable to the platform worker from their Social Security Fund. In continuance of this, the e-Shram portal was launched in August 2021. Nearly 25 crore informal sector workers have been registered on the same. However, social security without basic workers' rights to a safe working environment and adequate compensation is absurd.

The Occupational Safety, Health, and Working Conditions Code, 2020 does not include platform workers. The Code that mandates that workplaces must be free of hazards that are likely to cause injury or occupational disease is applicable only to employees and contract workers in factories and establishments and not platform workers. No responsibility is placed on these platforms that create near-impossible deadlines and routinely place the delivery persons who work for them in life-threatening situations.

When more orders are given to executives who make deliveries faster, it forces them to travel at unsafe speeds putting themselves and other people at risk. During the pandemic, these workers were particularly vulnerable and had to pay for personal protective equipment out of their own pockets. Several delivery executives have died or have been severely injured in road accidents.

The path forward is to ensure that the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 is expanded to include platform and gig workers. This would include holding platform aggregators such as Zepto accountable for the safety of their delivery executives.

(The writer is a student of National Law University, Jodhpur)