Livelihood in the time of Corona
A tale of two workers
Ajay, a UX designer working at an MNC in Bengaluru, got ready to go to office. He booked a cab and unlike most other days, was able to get a cab faster today and left for office. Ajay, being generally chatty, started a conversation with the cab driver, Mahesh. He found out that Mahesh was from Ajay’s home-town and they engaged in an extended conversation, mostly and unsurprisingly, about the coronavirus. During the conversation, Mahesh mentioned about his friend who continues to do his delivery job, despite having a runny nose and a sore throat. Ajay was perturbed at this and told Mahesh that his friend is being irresponsible.
Halfway through the journey, Ajay got an email from Human Resources which restricted all non-essential travel and supported work from home for all employees in order to slow the growth of infection and prevent community spread. He also got to know that one of his colleagues, who had showed symptoms of the dreaded virus, has been granted 28 days sick leave in accordance with the notification issued by the state government. Ajay immediately wrote an email to HR stating he is using the work from home option and asked Mahesh if he could drop him back home. Mahesh agreed given the recent drop in demand for cabs.
It then hit Ajay that maybe Mahesh’s friend didn’t have much of a choice but to keep working and be in the frontline of the potential risks of infection – such workers could not really work from home. It made Ajay realise the stark contrast between regular workforce and daily wage and gig workers such as Mahesh. He vaguely recalled reading somewhere that such gig workers do not really have the same wage and leave protections that regular workforce like him did. Ajay realised that the livelihood of such gig workers (cab drivers, delivery persons, etc) is directly indexed to the number of rides and number of deliveries per day. It now seemed logical to Ajay that Mahesh’s friend opted to not self-quarantine himself merely because he was showing some flu like symptoms as his entire livelihood was directly related to the numbers he achieved.
Ajay’s thoughts give rise to important considerations. Dire situations such as Corona raise important livelihood questions for gig workers. They are typically classified as self-employed and do not have an employer-employee relationship with the employer. This implies that the employer is under no legal mandate to pay such workers for those days when they are unable to work or do not work, for any reason.
Maybe it is time in such cases to extend similar support as regular workers (wage protections and leave benefits) to these gig workers. It could be in the form of unemployment benefits, insurance coverage, etc., in which both government and private sector participate. Even otherwise, private sector employers in the space may want to consider minimal daily wage allowances, regardless of daily output – these could be adjusted against future earnings.
A corona outbreak is an exceptional situation and any government policy or private sector initiatives should be catalysed by such situations – exceptional responses to exceptional times.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this Article are the personal views of the author and are purely informative in nature. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Further, the information provided does not constitute legal advice. For more details, please feel free to reach out to us at ruchi@tlaindia.com.