Enhancing Labour Rights Protection Among Gig Workers In Karnataka Through Legal Awareness: An Empirical Study
- IJLLR Journal
- 5 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Dr. Sunil Sudhakar Varnekar, Research Scholar, Alliance, School of Law, Alliance University, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Dr. Upankar Chutia, Associate Professor, Department of Law, Dayananda Sagar University, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
ABSTRACT
The gig economy has revolutionized India's labour market, offering flexible jobs and employment opportunities through digital platforms. The lack of conventional employment–employee dynamics, however, has brought about serious issues about workers' rights, social security, and legal protection for gig workers. The present study focuses on the intervention of legal awareness in improving the protection of labour rights of the gig workers in Karnataka with legal empowerment as a mediating variable. The methodology used in this research is mixed method which is a combination of doctrinal and empirical approaches in the study of the law. The doctrinal analysis consists of an in-depth study of the constitutional provisions, the Code on Social Security, 2020, and precedents and policies that have been established so far regarding the rights of gig workers. The empirical part is based on a structured questionnaire for collecting data from the gig workers, which were taken for simple random sampling among 150 gig workers across Karnataka. The data was analysed by SPSS and AMOS which included descriptive analysis, reliability test, validity test and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results show that legal awareness is a significant contributor to the level of legal empowerment and this in turn helps to increase labour rights protection among gig workers. The mediation analysis also indicates that the mediation of legal empowerment partially alleviated the effect of legal awareness on the protection of labour rights. The triangulation of doctrinal and empirical findings suggest that although India has created a progressive legal framework for gig workers, there is still little legal awareness amongst gig workers, and inadequate enforcement of the law. The study suggests that the legal literacy programs ought to be reinforced, grievance redressal mechanisms should be strengthened and the enforcement of social security provisions should be enhanced to foster equitable and sustainable protection of labour in the gig economy.
Keywords: Gig workers, Legal awareness, Legal empowerment, Legal right protection, Labour Laws.
