"BluSmart drivers’ strike: Call workers by their name", 9 May 2025

The strike highlights need for safeguards in the platform-based sector.

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..It has taken a protest by BluSmart drivers to draw attention to what failure has meant for those who make a platform — its workers.

The drivers are protesting the sudden loss of work, and the absence of severance pay or alternate jobs. Much like BluSmart drivers, platform workers across sectors remain without minimal guarantees of due process either when platforms shut down or in cases of termination. BluSmart drivers have also raised a demand for state intervention in the sector.

..The relationship between the state and platforms in India has been built on an alignment in their views on jobs and empowerment. .. Platforms champion the idea that their workers are not employees but independent “partners” who enter into a business rather than an employment arrangement. Such a view enables platforms to offer services through the labour of workers while demanding compliance with rules including wearing a uniform, following time schedules for deliveries, and even determining when and how they can cancel a job. Termed “partners”, workers must bear numerous costs, such as paying for their vehicles, purchasing equipment for use in home service platforms, and attendant costs of phones and data, all while paying high commission rates to platforms. They receive little protection from religious or caste-based discrimination, and there are hardly any attempts to address women’s access to safe public spaces and toilets.

..BluSmart was unique: The platform owned the cars, undertook training programmes for women drivers, and even offered minimum guaranteed incomes to its workers. Yet when the crisis hit, drivers were left without protection.