Karti P Chidambaram, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) from the Sivaganga constituency, flagged concerns in his zero-hour intervention on gig economy workers in the Parliament demanding stringent regulations for companies like Swiggy, Zomato, Uber, and Ola, among others*. “These delivery companies need to be regulated. they can't have these unrealistic and unreasonable delivery times, which is putting the lives of workers of these companies. I urge the (Union) government to come up with some guidelines for the protection of all workers in the gig economy.” — MP Karti Chidambaram https://twitter.com/KartiPC/status/1504006572519100418 Chidambaram outlined how there were no protections for gig economy workers. “There is no classification whether these (personal) vehicles are meant for commercial deliveries,” he said. He also underscored how insurance companies refuse to give compensation if workers meet with an accident. The speech comes closely on the heels of Zomato's 10-minute food delivery service which attracted flak from many users who concurred with the concerns highlighted by Chidambaram and suggested that the service by the company will only aggravate precarious working conditions of gig workers. "There are companies which are valued in billions which operate in this gig economy. Companies like Swiggy, Zomato, Dunzo, Uber, Ola...their valuation is based on a principle called TAT - Turn Around Time. The shorter the turn around time of them providing the service, the greater the valuation is...But this delivery is done by workers who are not employees, who are driving a vehicle which is a personal vehicle but are doing a commercial delivery."…
