Re-Imagining Labour Rights in the Online Gig Economy after COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis brought out the woes of India’s online gig workers as the lack of labour rights such as regulated hours of work, minimum wages, data rights and social protection exacerbated the precarity and insecurity of their work. In this context, this paper examines the question, how can labour rights be re-imagined for online gig workers in India. In particular, the study is interested in what type of rights constitute workers’ rights when work traverses online and offline medium as well as multiple legal orders such as formal and the informal sector of the economy. How can these interrelationships be acknowledged and imagined in a framework of rights? These are some of the aspects of the question, this study attempts to answer.