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Indian Express
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
When labour reform doesn't translate to labour rights
Written by Ujjwal Bhardwaj and Mrinalini Naik Recently, the National Platform for Domestic Workers (NPDW) reiterated its long-standing demand for a comprehensive national legislation to protect over 3 crore domestic workers across India. In the last few months, hundreds of Zepto workers in Hyderabad and Blinkit gig workers in Varanasi went on strike against arbitrary pay cuts and exploitative working conditions. Across the country, India's invisible labour force comprising domestic, gig, construction, sanitation, and agricultural labour is increasingly becoming vocal. But is the law listening? The 2019–20 labour codes were projected as a major reform, aimed at consolidating and streamlining India's labour laws. Yet, five years later, their silence on the unorganised sector is deafening. Of India's estimated 600 million workers, over 90 per cent work in the informal sector, without contracts, social security, or right to unionise. Despite the rhetoric of inclusivity, these codes bypass those who need protection the most. In 2008, the Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act was enacted to enable welfare schemes for such workers. However, the Act was limited in scope as it remained silent on key issues like minimum wage, working conditions, and unequal pay, and did not place binding obligations on the government. Worse, it required unorganised workers to furnish an 'employment certificate' to avail any benefit. This law was eventually subsumed into the Code on Social Security, 2020. Although the Code on Social Security, 2020, looks like inclusion, its design is exclusionary. While it theoretically extends coverage to gig and platform workers, it does not explicitly include several major categories of workers such as agricultural labourers, domestic workers, street vendors and shop-floor workers, thereby leaving them in a legal vacuum . Moreover, registration of workers under Section 113 of the Code remains voluntary and patchy. The burden of self-registration and self-verification on the e-Shram portal, imposed on workers who are already marginalised and digitally illiterate, reflects a top-down approach that fails to read the ground realities. The Code provides for the establishment of unorganised workers' welfare boards at national and state levels; however, these aren't fully operational yet. Only a few states have created welfare boards but most remain underfunded and underutilised. Kerala alone has a comparatively functional model, with dedicated boards for informal sectors and a tripartite funding structure. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court in the case of Ajay Malik vs State of Uttarakhand directed the Centre to enact a law to protect the rights of domestic workers. These workers, primarily women from Dalit and Adivasi communities, face a precarious situation. The absence of employer-employee recognition and exclusion of private households from the definition of 'establishment' under new labour laws leaves them under-protected. They are excluded from benefits like ESI, PF, and maternity leave. Neither do the new labour codes offer redress for sexual harassment. Although the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act) provides for local complaints committees for the unorganised sector, most districts have failed to constitute them, and enforcement remains almost non-existent. Agricultural workers, who form the backbone of India's rural economy are also left out. None of the four labour codes directly apply to the farm sector, despite the chronic wage exploitation, and high rates of indebtedness. Existing welfare schemes like PM-KISAN predominantly target agricultural landowners, leaving landless labourers with public distribution benefits, rather than robust wage or social security protections. Workers in retail outlets and repair shops face a similar predicament. While they fall under the ambit of the Code on Wages, 2019, enforcement is inadequate. This is due to a lack of shop registration, fear of job loss among workers if they report violations, and inadequate inspection machinery. The threshold-based applicability of the new labour codes further undermines their reach. Many provisions apply only to establishments employing 10, 20 or more workers, effectively excluding the lakhs of small shops and informal units where most unorganised employment is concentrated. India currently does not have a unified, binding legal regime to protect informal workers across sectors. Moreover, the laws treat such workers as recipients of welfare rather than holders of enforceable rights. Constitutional commitments under Articles 21, 39(e), 41 and 43 demand a rights-based approach to employment security and livelihood dignity. A central statute similar to the Rajasthan Platform-based Gig Workers (Welfare) Act, 2023, mandating worker registration and creation of welfare funds, applicable to all informal workers, is now required. Additionally, the long-pending National Policy for Domestic Workers, in circulation since 2011 and still in draft form, needs to be passed. Creating a single digital social security ID (Portable Smart Identification Cards), linked to Aadhaar and e-Shram, ensuring seamless portability across jobs, states, and employment types can be beneficial for the workers. The National Welfare Board and all state boards should be operationalised at the earliest. Appropriate funding and empowering the boards with proper tripartite representation (Workers' Representative, Employers and Government) and decision-making powers is needed. There should also be a robust Grievance Redressal Mechanism for all informal workers. Local Labour Ombudsmen at the ward or district level, empowered to adjudicate disputes, ensure fair wage practices, and enforce sexual harassment protections, especially in private homes and unregistered workplaces, can provide meaningful protection. India also needs to ratify ILO Conventions 189 and 184. These conventions on domestic work and agricultural safety standards will align India's framework with global rights-based norms. India's labour laws must not be tools of economic abstraction. They must reflect the real, lived experiences of those who build our cities, grow our food, clean our homes, and power our platforms. Unless the missing majority is placed at the centre of policy, labour reform will remain reform in name alone. The writers are advocates in the Supreme Court
Indian Express
29-05-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
Prime Video, now with ads: Today's digital citizen is paying more for less
Written by Mrinalini Naik The rapid growth of India's digital ecosystem over the last two decades has transformed how millions of people communicate, shop, learn, and entertain themselves. As India continues its digital surge, a growing number of users are facing a strange irony: The more dominant a platform becomes, the worse the experience gets. E-platforms once promised access, speed, convenience, control, a diverse selection and affordability. For a while, they delivered. But somewhere along the way, the user became less of a priority and more of a target. What we're witnessing now is the decay of digital platforms, a process that has earned a fitting name: 'Enshitification'. Coined by Canadian-British journalist Cory Doctorow, the term refers to how online platforms degrade over time: First serving users, then business clients, and eventually just themselves. For instance, recently, Amazon Prime notified its members that starting June 17, 2025, Prime Video will include advertisements, and if the members want to have an 'ad-free experience' on the OTT platform, they'll have to pay an additional fee on top of the standard Prime membership charges. Similarly, a few days back, both Zomato Gold and Swiggy One updated their terms to include 'rain-surge fees' even for premium subscribers. What began as loyalty programs offering free delivery and priority service now resemble subscription traps that add cost while subtracting value. These are not isolated incidents but part of a deliberate business model shift. As user growth plateaus, platforms turn inward, optimising for revenue per user, not user experience. Loyalty is no longer rewarded, it's priced. Coupons dry up for returning customers, free delivery becomes elusive, and core features are throttled behind new paywalls. Customer care has become bot-driven, and live human support is hidden behind multiple steps or unavailable. This phenomenon is plainly visible across India's digital ecosystem. Platforms like Spotify and YouTube constantly flood users with unskippable ads to push premium plans. From e-commerce to grocery and food delivery apps, users are now confronted with an escalating mix of non-negotiable 'platform fees' or 'handling charges' on every order. Multiple layers of fees, like delivery charges for smaller baskets, packaging fees, and surge pricing during peak hours, are added, and membership terms shrink in value over time. If this sounds like paying more to get less, that's because it is. The logic behind this model is simple: Once platforms scale to achieve market dominance and user dependence to become indispensable, monetisation intensifies. Charges once optional become default. However, 'enshitification' is not just limited to fees or the push for paid subscriptions; it's about all the systemic processes that degrade user experience. One such process is device-based price discrimination done by platforms. In 2025, a storm of user complaints and reports revealed that many platforms, specifically quick commerce and ride-hailing apps, were charging more to iPhone users than to Android users for the same route and time, based solely on device data. This profiling, based purely on perceived purchasing power, occurs without consent, transparency, or recourse. From the consumer perspective, it raises serious concerns about fairness, especially in the absence of clear disclosure by platforms. Another issue is that platforms are increasingly relying on dark patterns, that is, manipulative UI/UX to trick users into unwanted choices. Some of these patterns are: Creating 'false urgency', where fake limited stock countdowns push users into hasty decisions; 'basket sneaking', which involves adding unwanted items to the cart or auto-ticking donation boxes without consent; 'drip pricing', where hidden charges appear only at checkout; 'search bias', when platforms prioritise paid listings or ads over more relevant results burying small or local businesses that may offer better value or service; 'nagging', where platforms send continuous notifications or requests to purchase unintended goods or services; and 'subscription trap', making cancellation of paid membership difficult and complex. These patterns are inherently opaque, designed to mislead and extract more without the user actively realising it. To address this issue in 2023, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) issued guidelines under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, identifying a range of such manipulative practices (dark patterns) for prevention and regulation of those. However, the non-binding nature of Annexure-I (which provides specified dark patterns illustrations) offers guidance and not interpretation of the law. This grants the CCPA scope to offer new explanations of the mentioned practices, creating uncertainty and ambiguity in enforcement procedures. This provides a loophole for the digital platforms to continue indulging in dark patterns. Currently, India's legal framework for digital platforms addresses several important areas through the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and E-Commerce Rules, 2020. These mandate transparency in pricing and prohibit unfair trade practices; the Information Technology Rules, 2021 requires platforms to publish terms of use and establish grievance redress mechanisms; the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 ensures user consent and privacy; and the Competition Act,2002, prohibits practices like predatory pricing or market dominance abuse. However, none of these laws directly regulate user experience or interface design. Additionally, all these regulations are reactive, addressing harm after it occurs. What India needs right now is a forward-looking, ex-ante regulatory approach, inspired by global standards for governing user experience on digital platforms. Much like the EU's Digital Markets Act, the proposed Digital Competition Bill in India, if passed, will be an ex-ante regulation addressing some issues like self-preferencing of products by platforms, restricting users from using third-party applications on their core digital services or tying-bundling of non-essential services to those demanded by users. Though it's a welcome move to improve user experience to some extent, to truly address 'enshitification', India still needs legal frameworks on design and algorithm transparency standards, clearer definitions and binding regulations on dark patterns and mandatory UX audits for large platforms. The writer is an advocate at the Supreme Court of India
