Gig workers are using tech to beat tech

From pushing for reforms to using technology, gig workers in India are mobilising themselves against exploitation

- Vandana Vasudevan

The Finnish platform Wolt, which provides food and retail delivery services in over twenty countries, released a report called 'Algorithmic Transparency Report' in 2022 to address criticisms of non-transparency, a first of its kind in the industry. One of its assurances is that the platform does not use any ranking or rating to determine which courier partner is offered a delivery task, except proximity and the type of vehicle the partner is using.

Platform Labor is a research project funded by the European Research Council that aims to determine how digital platforms are transforming the organization of labour, especially in cities marked by eroding welfare systems. Niels van Doorn, the principal investigator of the project who also teaches at the University of Amsterdam, has many more questions he thinks Wolt needs to answer. At the 2022 'Reshaping Work' conference in Amsterdam, he demanded to know why Wolt has decided to opt for a dynamic pricing system. How much is the base fee per delivery in each market, and how many cents per kilometre do partners get as part of the 'distance fee' in different markets? How often are fee calculations updated, and what new data inputs or metrics are they based on? How come distance is calculated as the crow flies, but the actual distance varies due to city conditions? Why aren't they paid for time spent in the restaurant waiting or for the kilometres travelled to the restaurant, why only to the customer's house?

There aren't many answers to this barrage of questions, which workers in India are just beginning to ask. But there is hope that a few leaders have emerged among gig workers who are mobilizing them and knocking on the doors of the government and the public at large, urging them to hear their side of the digital commerce story.

PULLING THE WOOL