11 April,2021 06:45 AM IST | Mumbai | Prutha Bhosle
Tushar Gawas, delivery agent with Foogro Daily, earns Rs 15,000/monthly and says difficult clients are routine. Pic/Satej Shinde
Two weeks ago, Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin in the US, referenced Amazon in a tweet for making "workers urinate in water bottles". In defence, Amazon's Twitter account read: "If that were true, nobody would work for us." Almost immediately, evidence emerged of overworked drivers having to urinate in bottles. The global e-commerce giant has now apologised: "We owe an apology to Representative Pocan. The tweet was incorrect. It did not contemplate our large driver population and instead wrongly focused only on our fulfilment centres. We know that drivers can and do have trouble finding restrooms because of traffic or sometimes rural routes, and this has been especially the case during COVID-19, when many public restrooms have been closed."
Not just in America, but the Coronavirus outbreak has brought attention to serious flaws within India's widely-celebrated gig economy, too. Nearly 90 per cent of Indian gig workers have lost income during the pandemic, according to a survey by Flourish Ventures, a global fintech venture capital fund with investments across South Asia. Gig work essentially entails working as a freelancer or on short-term contract-basis, as opposed to permanent employment.
Bengaluru-based job tech startup Workex has more than five million jobseekers enrolled on its platform, many of whom are gig workers. "Last-mile delivery gigs are among the top-five job roles and applications on the platform, accounting for between 7-10 per cent of all the jobs and applications," the company's spokesperson told mid-day. This is because the disruptions caused by COVID-19 resulted in millions of job losses, forcing many to turn into gig workers almost overnight. Tushar Gawas's story is testimony to this.
Gawas, 23, left his job as a health advisor a few weeks before the nationwide lockdown in March 2020. He had a round of interviews scheduled with an Indian multi-national conglomerate, but his dream of working for the company was cut short. Left jobless, he decided to become a delivery boy for Foogro Daily - a farm-to-fork delivery startup in Mumbai. The Dahisar resident says he has come across more than a dozen unpleasant customers in the last few months. "At the last minute, either they ask for the items to be delivered to another address, or will send instructions on how they want vegetables and fruits to be packed - some want with plastic, others without. We try to fulfill all demands, but sometimes when orders are delivered in our standard package, we bear the brunt. Those who treat us politely are few. We even offer discounts to customers who tend to bicker a lot, so that they keep us in their good books," Gawas tells us.
There are three young staffers, including Gawas, who handle deliveries all across the city for the startup. After a delivery, the norm is to wait below the customer's building for 15 minutes in case s/he wishes to issue a return. "Petrol is expensive, and there is a dearth of manpower, so waiting at location saves us time and energy."
Gawas earns Rs 15,000 monthly for a 63-hour/seven days a week schedule. The scene brightens up when the rare customer offers positive feedback. Recently, he says, he delivered an order to a regular customer in Thane, but some of the items were not up to the mark. He instantly apologised and returned his payment. "A few days later, I sent him a box of cherries as apology. He was so happy with the gesture that he ended up placing about 10 more orders that month," Gawas beams. He thinks even if the earnings are low, he is contributing to a budding startup that may grow big some day. "It's a young company, and we all think of it as our own. If it becomes successful, it will be because of our good work."
Last month, the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT), a trade union body representing gig workers, announced in a press release that Amazon had issued a new policy update on March 15 saying that delivery staff would earn Rs 10 on small packages and Rs 15 for deliveries made through tempos. The staff was earlier getting Rs 35 on each order, the trade union said. The press note added that the delivery staff of Amazon were making around Rs 20,000 a month before the national lockdown last year, but that earning has now dropped to Rs 10,000 following updated payment structures. On March 15, the delivery personnel in Pune had organised a protest after Amazon India lowered delivery fees. IFAT said Amazon must pay Rs 70-80 for every parcel delivered through vans, while fees for small parcels must be Rs 20, considering the increase in retail fuel prices.
Irfan Khan was previously working with food aggregator Swiggy. When the company reduced the payment per delivery - in Khan's case from Rs 70 to Rs 34 - he quit and moved to Wefast India, an on-demand intra-city courier and delivery service. "Being a delivery person was profitable before the pandemic. Loss of jobs means a lot more people have taken delivery gigs. And when supply exceeds demand for a good or service, wages dip," Khan says. WeFast allows riders the liberty to take up two deliveries at a time, but Khan says it's not practical because it means racing against time to reach a given destination, and then leaving soon after for another. Given Mumbai's oppressive traffic, there's no guarantee that you will reach at the designated hour. Reaching late leads to a drop in ratings; they can even slip into minus. That translates into slimmer chances of bagging a delivery the next time. "Let's say, a customer places a delivery order for Tardeo. My app will reflect Haji Ali - it never shows the exact destination. You invariably end up travelling an extra kilometre or so in the final leg of the journey. Sometimes, customers end up cancelling the pickup order when the driver is not able to get the directions. The same order is passed on to the next delivery agent. In this exchange, the time allotted for delivery remains the same." He says the customer doesn't care why you were late. "It doesn't matter even if you meet with an accident on the way; the parcel should arrive on time. If the customer cancels the order, no fines are incurred. But if a delivery agent cancels, Rs 50 is deducted from our payment." Positive customer reviews are conveyed to the riders via a message.
Khan, originally from Lucknow, was not always slinging orders on a scooty for a living. Previously, he worked in South Arabia at a boutique, but moved to Mumbai a couple of years ago for better prospects. Earning somewhere between Rs 8,000 and Rs 10,000 a month is not what he had in mind. "Companies have increased their profit margin and reduced the rider's. Earlier, even on big orders of Rs 400 and above, they would charge a small sum of Rs 25. Now, even if the order is for Rs 110, they charge Rs 40 to Rs 50 bucks."
Due to COVID-restrictions, the job application process for delivery gigs is done entirely online. "You have to download a form, submit your pan card, driving licence, bank account details, following which an ID is generated. This process takes a minimum of 24 hours. The documents are then verified. If your photo is blurred, you are asked to redo. These days, there's no vetting process to speak of. They ask you for your phone number and sometimes, within 30 minutes, you are assigned duty."
Instructions are sent via a message to remain unfailingly polite while on duty. Displaying anger - even if you have been wronged - before a customer has to be avoided at all cost.
Khan lives in Vikhroli but his work takes him all across the city, from Nalasopara to Nepean Sea Road. He says he meets all kinds of customers in a day. "It feels nice to have grateful strangers who offer water, tip me generously or don't lose their cool if I am a few minutes late. But these are exceptions.
Many of them are rude and will harass you to ensure you return that one buck even if you don't have change handy."
Customer is the king for the company, says Khan. The redressal mechanism for riders is automated. "If we wish to complain, there is a chat option. The bot responds with this message: your query will be answered within two hours. Now, if there's an urgent issue that needs addressing, what good will it do if I am heard two hours later?"
Hazrat Shaikh, 24, has been working with Urban Company as an AC technician for three years. He says he has fortunately never had unpleasant encounters with customers, and is earning more than he did at his earlier job at Panasonic service centre. Pic/Atul Kamble
Last year, one of the writers of this story found herself in a soup when a food order (meant for us) was delivered to the wrong party, who refused to return it. The delivery professional spent over 30 minutes negotiating with them to get the parcel back. Rahul Dubey, who works for Swiggy, is all too familiar with this mess. He, too, has accidentally delivered a package to a person who accepted what wasn't his. "When the value of the accidentally-delivered parcel is higher than what they had ordered for, they say it's our fault that we dropped it off at the wrong address. It takes a lot of patience and pleading to get it back." He says in such cases, Swiggy issues a reorder request to both parties. "Fortunately, they haven't penalised us." Dubey, 26, receives Rs 40 per order, but he said the company has begun recruiting workers who are willing to work for wages as low as Rs 15. "Due to this, orders are drying up for the old timers like myself; I've been doing this for five years. Companies, of course, would be happy to cut corners."
Dubey has seen gruelling routines: 12-hour days, six days a week, but the idea of incentives was enough motivation to soldier on. "The perks unfortunately have now been done away with. It no longer matters how many hours of work you put it; you end up with Rs 120 in a day which is just enough to cover petrol costs."
That it may no longer be lucrative to be a gig worker became evident last month when a controversy erupted in Bengaluru. Hitesha Chandranee, a makeup artist and influencer, shared a video online claiming that a Zomato delivery executive assaulted her. After her video went viral, Zomato shared an apology for the incident and promised necessary action. The delivery executive who was accused of physical assault, identified as Kamaraj, however, shared a different version of the incident and denied the allegation, saying that it was the woman who first verbally abused him, and then hit him with a "chappal." Kamaraj further added that he did apologise since the delivery was delayed due to traffic and bad roads, but Chandranee was rude. According to Kamaraj's version, he tried to duck when she hit him and it's then that she accidentally brushed her finger ring on her nose, which led to the bleeding.
In response to the conflicting reports, Samanyway Das, a 22-year-old IIT Gandhinagar student, launched a petition on Change.org. "What happened in Bengaluru with the Zomato delivery boy-Kamaraj is so unfortunate. Let's speak for justice and truth," it read. Speaking with mid-day from Bally, Howrah, Das said the idea of launching a petition was born out of a discussion with his friends. "Initially, reports suggested that the woman was the aggrieved party, but subsequently we began hearing the other side of the story. From what we learnt, Kamaraj hails from a underprivileged background and is the sole breadwinner. It will be unfair and wrong if he loses the job due to false allegations," says Das. Although he has signed several petitions on the portal, this was the first that he initiated personally. Over 65,230 people signed the petition leaving Das pleasantly surprised.
Reports now suggest that the Bengaluru police has decided to stop the investigation into the alleged assault case after not finding evidence in the matter. Police said the claimant, Chandranee, also wasn't cooperating with them.
India's gig economy is set to triple over the next four years to 24 million jobs in the non-firm sector from the existing eight million, said a report by consulting firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.
Basudev Burman is a labour researcher, network coordinator for Ola and Uber drivers and unions and part of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF). According to Burman, cab aggregator apps Ola and Uber tend to keep updating their contracts for employees on a regular basis. "We have noticed how the language to identify a driver changes; it has changed from driver-partner to customer to user, depending on the reactions to labour and policy changes at a given time. Within contracts, there are, what I call, âtraps' for the drivers. Let's say, a contract is updated and the driver hasn't got a chance to go through it, but continues to use the app frequently, it is assumed that he has acknowledged and accepted the new terms. Even if the driver hasn't clicked, yes." Prior to the pandemic, the issues that Burman and the union were trying to address revolved around longer working hours that didn't get compensated, incentives being lost and rating getting affected due to the dry runs. Since the Coronavirus outbreak, the issues related to lease vehicles being repossessed by the company and banks because the drivers could not pay the EMIs have taken centrestage. "Even if the moratorium was increasing week by week, it wasn't being implemented for the drivers. The ones that were repossessed by the company (and assured) were also released." Burman says they are in the process of setting up a federation of app-based transport workers in India which represents not just Ola and Uber, but also Swiggy, Zomato, Dunzo and other logistics and delivery workers. "If we take the case of Ola and Uber, each city presents a different challenge. For instance, the highest road tax is in Lucknow." While the Social Security Code 2020 has vital provisions with respect to social security benefits that will make gig workers eligible for life and disability coverage, health insurance, maternity benefits and pension, its implementation has been delayed.
That said, the moments of despair sometimes get outnumbered by the upsides of the job, say some. Hazrat Shaikh, 24, who works as an AC technician with home services platform Urban Company (formerly Urban Clap), is lucky enough to have met only great customers so far. "I've completed almost three years here, and the experience has only been pleasant. I only get assignments within five kilometre radius of my Ghatkopar home, so my job doesn't entail excessive travel. Only if we don't turn up for a job, after having accepted it on the app, are we notified of deduction in overall payment," he shares.
Shaikh accepts about three to four assignments per day, and earns almost Rs 60,000 per month. "Before Urban Company, I worked in Panasonic service centre, and earned only about Rs 12,000. I am glad I became a gig worker, my life has changed. I have met families who are infinitely patient till the repairs are done," he says.
When employees want to report bad customer behaviour, Urban Company has a dedicated partner support team of approximately 300 employees. Varun Khaitan, co-founder, Urban Company, says, "Partners can reach out to us for any concern such as pricing, invoicing or any other issue they may face while delivering a service. Partners can also raise tickets for other issues they may have with regard to their profile, financing, insurance, training, etc. These issues are handled by specialised teams within our partner support ecosystem."
Unlike other firms, delivery partners can report a complaint to a person manning the helpline number, and not a chatbot. Khaitan continues, "Ninety-nine per cent of our calls made by a partner during a service are handled within two minutes of the partner calling. For all other issues such as profile, financing, insurance, training, etc, which are non-urgent in nature, we reach out in 15 minutes.
Most of these are generally resolved on the first call but if some require further probing, we get back to the partner at the earliest. There is also an SOS support for any emergency health and safety situations."
Most common issues raised by their gig workers on the helpline number include invoicing and pricing, payouts, change in area of jobs, order status, loans and insurance. Gig workers even undergo training to be able to handle a difficult client. Khaitan explains, "All our service partners come with experience in their field of work, and go through a rigorous selection and hands-on training programme, during which we assess and coach them on both hard skills and customer service. During the training programme, there are days dedicated to soft skills and situation handling training modules. These are conducted via role play activities wherein we try and cover as many scenarios as possible. This gets them both comfortable and confident to conduct themselves well in all situations."
However, Amarnath Mistri, who has been a driver with Ola since 2012, thinks the cab aggregator company still needs to work on its SOS support for its gig workers. The 41-year-old Andheri East resident recalls, "Four years ago, a female passenger said to me: main joote se maroongi [I will smack you with a shoe]. I told her that she cannot talk to me like this, even if I am a driver. I then called customer care, and I was guaranteed that the woman's ID would be blocked. I don't know if that was ever done. What I do know is that I lost my self respect that day."
Mistri, who hails from Uttar Pradesh and lives in Mumbai with his wife and 13-year-old daughter, has been driving a private car since 2009. Registering his car with Ola was a risk he was willing to take. He almost immediately hit gold. "I was earning Rs 1,50,000 per month. I ended up buying four more cars on EMI soon after. But just before the lockdown, work slowed down. During the pandemic, I had to sell all the four cars. Now, I make about Rs 800 per day, that's all," he rues.
Mistri thinks people are getting angrier in the COVID-induced lockdown, due to job losses, stress, emotional pressure and human loss. "I have noticed that I come across more bitter passengers nowadays. There are drunk men who refuse to pay full fare, women who argue that I have tampered with the metre, some youngsters who want to fool around. Once, a young boy booked a ride with me. When I turned up, I called him, but he took a while to come downstairs. I called again, and he was very rude. Finally, when he got into the cab, I asked him how old he was. I told him I was as old as his parent, and that he needed to apologise to me for being disrespectful. Redfaced, he instantly said he was sorry. He had lashed out at me as he was in a foul mood. I forgave him. I believe that a customer is always right, but testing our patience is not right either. All we need is a little respect from our clients."
90 per cent
Indian gig workers who've lost income in pandemic, according to a survey by Flourish Ventures
Rs 10
Earnings per small package of Amazon India currently, slashed from Rs 35 earlier
7-10 per cent
Percentage of job seekers for last-mile delivery gigs from the 5 million enrolled with Workex, a Bengaluru-based jobtech startup
