Platform Power And Precarity: Algorithmic Discrimination And The Rights Of Gig Workers
- IJLLR Journal
- Apr 22
- 2 min read
Aditya Yadav, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Delhi NCR
ABSTRACT
The rise of platform-mediated labour has profoundly reshaped work structure by placing algorithms at the Centre of task allocation, performance evaluation, and disciplinary action. Platforms such as Uber, Ola, Swiggy, and Zomato promise flexibility, autonomy, and entrepreneurial opportunity. Yet, beneath this promise lies systemic precarity, where workers’ livelihoods are directly impacted by opaque algorithmic decisions that often replicate or exacerbate social biases. Rating-based evaluations, automated deactivations, and algorithmically determined work schedules create economic uncertainty and limited redress conditions, leaving gig workers excluded from traditional labour protections.
Cab drivers, particularly those working late-night shifts, face heightened safety risks. The absence of adequate institutional safeguards or legal recourse compounds exposure to harassment, assault, theft, and road accidents. The traditional labour law framework in India, designed for fixed workplaces and identifiable employers, fails to address these emergent vulnerabilities. Gig workers are frequently classified as independent contractors, rendering them ineligible for minimum wages, occupational safety protections, Social Security, or collective bargaining rights. This regulatory gap underscores the urgent need for legislative reform recognising gig work's economic and safety dimensions.
This article critically examines the intersection of algorithmic governance, worker rights, and occupational safety, with particular attention to the challenges cab drivers face. Drawing on comparative experiences from the European Union, where the Platform Work Directive mandates employment presumptions and algorithmic transparency, and the United States, where state-level initiatives and litigation have sought to clarify worker classification and safeguard rights, the paper highlights pathways for India to develop a comprehensive framework. It advocates a rights-based legislative approach encompassing algorithmic transparency, procedural fairness, enforceable safety guarantees, and mechanisms for collective representation. Ensuring that gig workers are protected from exploitation, discrimination, and physical harm is a social and economic imperative. Only by embedding accountability into the governance of algorithms can the Indian gig economy evolve into a system that balances flexibility with dignity, safety, and justice.
Keywords: Algorithmic Governance, Gig Economy, Platform Labour, Regulatory Reform, Worker Rights
