Daybreak - How a cab driver from Hyderabad became the face of India’s 8 million gig workers

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

Meet Shaik Salauddin, a 38-year-old cab driver from Hyderabad, who is fighting for the rights of eight million gig workers from across the country. While India's gig economy is burgeoning, the workers on whose backs it is built barely enjoy any rights or legal protections. Salauddin realised this early on and in 2019, after five years of relentless pursuit, the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) was born. With over 25,000 members working for aggregators like Uber, Amazon, and Zomato, through IFAT, Salauddin is redefining the way we look at trade unions. To begin with, the union has no political affiliations. Instead, Salauddin encourages all of its members to understand power structures and approach the right people to drive change.Thanks to his efforts, two states, Karnataka and Rajasthan, have introduced legislations to protect the rights of gig workers. Others like Kerala are working on their own.In this episode, hosts Snigdha and Rahel speak to Salauddin himself and to Prof. Vinoj Abraham from Labour Economics at the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram to understand the significance of Salauddin's work and why it is important to protect gig workers.  Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.A special shout out to Hari Krishna, from the Two by Two team, who kindly agreed to dub parts of this episode. Thank you, Hari!Fill in Akshaya's Happiness Survey here

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Ramon Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

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Hey, papa, one day delivery, not, now, now do delivery. One day delivery in a day delivery, in a day delivery, in a day delivery, me, put. You're behind your algorithm. My boss's going to, I'm a lot of business meet Sheikh Salaudin. A 38-year-old man from

Hyderabad who is fighting for the rights of over 8 million gig workers across India. And everybody who knows him calls him Sheikh-Bai. And that's exactly what we are going to call him today too. Right. The reason we're talking about him today

is because Sheikh-Pai is pretty much redefining the way we look at modern trade unions. He is basically the... a quintessential working class hero. And what you just heard was him telling us that Zumato's Dipinder Goel should try delivering food for a whole month and not just one day to really understand

the plight of its quote-unquote partners. Snickda and I got on a call with him early one Wednesday morning. Hello. Hello. Hello. You know a voice are, I'm Snikda boling. Yeah, yeah, it's a, right.

It's a-warned, fine. Great. Are you comfortable in Hindi, English? Yes, Hindi comfortable, Sheikh Bhai is a busy man. His phone was constantly beeping throughout our half-an-hour conversation with him. I guess that's what happens

when you balance two full-time jobs. You're probably wondering what they are. Well, I'm just going to let him explain. My name is Sheikh Salahuddin. I'm a driver My name is Sheikhs al-Din. I'm a driver and I work for app-based transport companies. I'm the co-founder and general secretary of the Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers. I'm the founder-state president of Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union.

I'm also a member of the International Alliance of App-Based Transport Workers' Steering Committee. You know, how we've been talking so much, even on day. about the quick commerce boom in India. From food to groceries to clothes to even air conditioners, you can get it all within minutes. Just a few days ago, Mintera announced that it is testing four-hour deliveries in metro cities. The thing is, all these conveniences that we so enjoy

are quite literally on the backs of these millions of gig workers. But this is an unorganized sector and these workers barely have any rights. Sheikh Bhai has spent the last 10. years trying to change this. All these aggregator companies call gig workers partners. They never call them or treat them as workers because they know that would mean recognizing their rights. These companies have so much money.

Whose money is that? It's our money. But whose strategy is it? It's theirs. How to indirectly strangle the working class. And they've learned how to play the game really well, thanks to technology. And think about it. In the last decade, the government hasn't figured out any laws for these workers

or thought about their welfare. We've been fighting 10 years and finally, we now have some wins. You have to get on the land. Where there's Zindabad, Mordabad, it's been to be able to be. And, with, digital campaignings. And this time, the digital's chrra, digital-pey-to-lade-le-lap. You have to get down to the ground. wherever you have to shout slogans of long live or death to whatever it is,

you have to do it. And also, because we live in a digital world, we have to take this fight there as well. In this episode, we dive into how Sheikh Bha and his union have been taking on giants like Uber, Amazon and Zomato. Hello and welcome to another special episode of Daybreak. I'm Snigda and I'm Rahil and every week we come together to talk about something in business and tech that interests.

the both of us. And it won't just be us. Depending on what we're talking about, we will bring some really interesting people onto the podcast. In this episode, we speak to Sheikh Salahuddin and Vinodja Abraham, a professor of labour and economics

at the University of Tiruvanandhpuram. Sheikh Saladin's fight began before the state of Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh. These were politically charged times. Sheikh Bhai, who was working as a cab driver, even then, was an executive member of the Andhra Pradesh Four Reelers Association.

Once the bifurcation process was completed, he became the president of the newly formed Telangana Four Reelers Association. This was around the time that Ola and Uber were coming into the picture. Within three months, Ola and Uber began showing their true colors. That time, a lot of drivers approached me for help. Get us out of this message. I told them I barely know anything about it

because I was driving a hired vehicle. So I went ahead and signed up on Ola and Uber to understand the problems they were facing. I began gathering all the information on it and got to work. I wanted to figure out how to set up a platform for all of these workers. Remember this was when India was just being introduced to gig work as a concept. So protecting the rights of gig workers was not something anyone had really thought about at that point.

According to Sheikh Bai, there were a few isolated strikes and protests taking place from time to time. There were several smaller groups being formed. But to make a real difference, he knew that there was power in numbers. India's freshly minted army of gig workers would have to band together for their voices to be heard. He kept talking to people, to governments, different unions, organisations, negotiating, asking for help until finally, five years later in 2019, IFAT was. born, or Aifat, the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers.

It currently has 25,000 members. When I began studying and researching this thoroughly, I just had one goal. Till we don't have a proper law in place, our fight will be incomplete. Whenever we spoke to the government, we didn't know where to go. Which one was our department? Is it labor, IT, or transport? Who is going to solve our issues? Even they didn't know.

They didn't have any solutions or resolutions for us. It was a stressful time. After that in 2018, we met Mr. Nitin Gatkari. Nithin Gatkari promised us two things. Social Security and Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines. He did it, but I'm sure you know this was never actually implemented. You see, India's existing labour laws do not recognize or cover gig workers in any form. The only framework that kind of comes close is,

the Social Security Code of 2020, where Chapter 9 talks about social security for unorganized gig and platform workers. But discord is yet to be implemented. Now, the amazing thing about Aifat is that it's never been affiliated with any political party. That's really unusual. Because if we look back at the history of Indian labour unions,

they've always been linked to some party or the other. Aifat under Sheikh Bhai refuses to do that. We asked him why. The size of this workforce is increasing really fast. At this time, I don't think it's right to bend towards any one political party or work under their umbrella. Our target is to organize and unionize all these people and educate them and empower them. So, instead of aligning with a political party, Sheikh Pai knows how to leverage his power. As the leader of Afit and as the face of the Indian gig workers, he speaks.

with political leaders from across the spectrum. And that is exactly what he did two years ago when he met Congress leader Rahul Gandhi while Gandhi was passing through Hyderabad during the Bharad Jodoro Yatra. You must have seen back then the Bharat Joddo Yatra was happening. I met Rahul Gandhi then. I told him about gig and platform workers.

He didn't know much about them. I explained to him and told him about the problems they face. I walked 10 kilometers with him. He promised me he'd do three things for us. in all the Congress-governed states. One, a law for gig workers. Two, Social Security Board and three, minimum wage. The first big win was Rajasthan in July 23.

The state government came up with a new law that aims to establish a welfare board and a dedicated social security fund for platform-based gig workers in the state. The same month, the Congress government in Karnataka announced a free, accidental and life insurance cover worth $4 lakh rupees for gig workers. And then exactly a year later came another huge win.

The Karnataka government introduced a draft bill of the Karnataka platform-based gig workers, social security and welfare bill. Sheikh Pai was on it immediately. He managed to bring together 20,000 gig and platform workers, lawyers, researchers to understand the pros and cons of each section. He collected feedback and he did all of this within 10 days of the drafts release. This was unprecedented. Never before had we heard of trade unions shaping government policies in this manner. But what does all of this mean?

Well, stay tuned to find out. Hello, daybreak listeners. This podcast you're listening to is produced from the newsroom of the Kent. And guess what? We have a lot of other podcasts too. I'm Akshad Chandrashakran. I host the Ken's early careers podcast,

the first two years. And I am on a mission to find out what makes people happy in their early career. Even if you're way past the first two years of your career, looking back, can you recall what had the biggest impact? Was it the job, the company, the people? What was it? Well, what if we asked the same question to dozens or even hundreds of people

and create a wealth of valuable experience, repository of knowledge from people of different backgrounds? What would that look like? That's exactly what we set out to do. We created a survey and we want to hear from you. The link is in the show notes. I read and review eight submission and might even have you on the show. I look forward to hearing from you.

Now back to your daybreak. What Sheikh Bai has managed to do for gig workers in the last one decade or so is nothing short of revolutionary. Think about it. Here is one man, a cab driver from Hyderabad who has moved mountains to protect the rights of gig workers in the country. He didn't just get laws introduced, like he had hoped. He also made sure workers themselves were an active part of the process.

We spoke to Vinodj Abraham, a professor of labour economics at the Centre for Development Studies in Tirwanandhapuram. We wanted to understand the enormity of what Sheikh Pai has managed to achieve and how he's changing the way we perceive trade unions. So what makes Sheikh different from the other union leaders or the people who are able to gather people together is the fact that he's able to do it in a sector that otherwise would not have joined together. Therefore, although the problems, the challenges that are faced in this sector are equally or sometimes even worse than some of the other. sectors but it is not visible to the employee or the worker themselves or it is even when it is visible it is the consumers the people who actually enjoy the these rights or these uh these delivery delivery the food being delivered the customers or the clients they themselves would not want to

go against the system also so that's a it's a very difficult system but that's where actually shake has been able to enter and play a significant role over there Right, it's pretty amazing what he's been able to pull off. You know, there have been so many victories for gig workers ever since he kind of started a decade ago, the most significant of which, of course, has been the legislation that was passed in Karnatica and Hyderabad. Sir, I want to talk about those in particular, right?

If you could break down what that actually means for gig workers on a day-to-day. So both the Karnataka and the Rajasthan Act, the Kanataka Act and the Rajasthan Act, both of them are actually focusing on welfare and social security provisions that are to be given for the gig workers. The act per se tried to identify who are gig and platform workers and then they try to identify provisions through which welfare could be reached or social security could be reached. So for instance, health insurance or accident insurance. So both these acts are more or less focused on this particular aspect.

And therefore, the workers, to that extent, who are wanting to get a social security benefit out of this particular service, the service that they are doing, certainly they are going to gain from these acts. But the biggest problem with the industry, gig workers, platform workers industry, relates to conditions of work.

That is, whether conditions of work, two types. One is about the conditions under the conditions under which they are asked to work, for instance, the financial system or the financial structure of their payment, how are bonuses being paid, how are incentive structures built around their rights or their delivery that they do? So the surety or the security around their particular financial incentive structures and how sure they are, that's one of the biggest worries that they have, which is not much addressed in both of this thing. And the second aspect is actual physical working conditions under which they will.

So many of these workers are actually ready to exploit themselves, what we call a self-exploitation. You could work for, instead of working on an eight-hour shift, you can work for 21-hour shifts. No one is going to complain. No one is going to ask you whether you work for 12 hours or 21 hours. As strong as you can stand and do it, you can continue to do it. But that is actually exploitative on oneself.

you are actually killing yourself doing that particular job. And one could say that it is up to his free will to do how much time you want to spend on work. But most of the time this kind of work is done basically because you do not have the ability or you don't have the capacity to stand out of the market. Because you are in need of money and you need money. So you are just ready to work for maybe 20 hours or 21 hours. that is a that's a structural problem that is underlying the economy where when there exists no other forms of social security welfare system you are forced to work for many hours and there is no legal system that is standing against this so that's those are the things that are really worrying

about these sectors but yes social security to some extent they would give you some coverage on I think in this front, the Kerala government is coming up with the legislation as far as I know. They have certain provisions with regard to physical as well as financial conditions of work that they are proposing to do in future, I think. So that's not yet, it's only a draft bill right now, not even a bill. There is a draft that is getting prepared for the Kerala government. And there is more progressive provisions with regard to protection of Kiguan platform workers, apart from the social security aspect.

Right. But Professor, at what point do you think, you know, this will be enough to put a certain amount of pressure on startups and companies to behave in a particular way, you know, to draw that line. And also how much of that onus actually lies on these companies themselves? See, right now what's happening is that many of these companies, the large companies, the e-commerce companies or the what we call the platform companies. they are volunteering themselves to act on certain aspects

so that it doesn't blow out of proportion. So, for instance, what I hear is OLA or Uber. They have their own, OLA and Uber, I think, so they have already started their own health insurance thing and accidents insurance thing for the drivers already there, who are drivers to them. And they have some kind of a social security scheme without the government influencing them at all.

So some companies have started moving in that direction. But is it okay for that companies to be volunteering? Because I've been hearing this thing that companies and large companies are volunteering. So what's the need for state to enter this particular arena? Or what is the need for bargaining from workers when the employers themselves are doing it? And I think that's a danger where employers are doing it. Therefore, state should not enter. I think the state's role is to regulate.

The state role is to get into the sectors and understand not because the employer is volunteering, but because it is the right of the employee and it is the responsibility of the state to be there, ensure that there is justice and fairness under the conditions which these workers are working. In traditional sectors, when there are associations, unions, when there are or when employees forms unions, that's on the backing of something called a Trade Union Act or kind of regulation which says that you cannot employ a person under these conditions. And that is what actually rally people together when people are employed against the conditions under which regulations have been set.

And when people are kind of employed against such rules, that's when these kind of movements take place. But what's happening now is that you have a kind of a complete vacuum over there. And because there is a vacuum, whoever is in power, that is, you have the capital power over there, the power of that capital would be stronger always because of the fact that there is no balancing power over there. Workers themselves are not identifiable as workers and they are masked, they are workers masked as self-employed or partners with the firms. So the regulatory structures are not there.

I think so that is one very important thing to bring in some balance. And once the regulatory structures are there, the legal system is there for how this kind of work needs to be done. Then you will have the employees also kind of forming, identifying themselves as workers. Right now, they do not know they are workers. They call themselves as taxi. I own a taxi. So I am the king of myself. That's what the employee would call himself.

But the fact that he's a paid worker, but in a mask matter, that collective sense is yet to develop in this sector. You see, before Sheikh Bhai came along and set up Aifat, traditional unions did try to accommodate gig workers. But they just weren't able to get a sense of how complicated this space is. The biggest problem has been defining what gig work actually is, who qualifies as a gig worker. Sheikh Pai recognized that gig workers needed a separate union that focused exclusively on their protection, redressing their concerns.

We asked Professor Abraham why traditional unions fell short and weren't able to do this. The traditional type of unions are actually trying to unionize gig and platform workers. But they have not been very successful. Like for instance, CITU AITUC, all those traditional unions are even now trying to bring this workers under a single platform. Under Gigan Platform Workers, unions are there for under the traditional unions. But they have not been able to gather the imagination of these workers.

They are not been able to address the imagination of these workers. Because there are certain contradictions that exist within the unions themselves. Like, for instance, the traditional unions will have to, within them, within the unions themselves, you have the taxi workers union, which is a. the traditional taxi workers union and then you have a segment of the gig workers. Now the gig workers and taxi workers are the traditional gig workers and the traditional tax and the new gig workers or the Uber and all the drivers are actually fighting amongst themselves, are fighting against each other thinking that one is taking the space of others.

So there is this conflict, that inherent conflict that is lying within the traditional union structure and that becomes very difficult to actually reconcile the fact that they both are part of the same system, right? Because they are competing amongst themselves. Similarly for delivery. Similarly, so many of these sectors that are coming up, the gig work is actually replacing the traditional work. Now, the traditional unions with the traditional structure of workers,

for them to accommodate this new type of new segment of workers would become very difficult because of the way in which they had been conventionally working. Now, gig workers, many of them do not identify them. themselves as workers, just like the IT sector who they call themselves professionals and who do not, who are resistant to be part of this thing, this kind of union formation. Key workers also to a large extent would want to keep away from unions of the traditional unions based on the fact that they consider themselves as professionals. Yeah, especially there are young urban kids, maybe 18 to 24, 25 or 30 year old people who

who do not want to identify with the traditional labour force as well. They consider themselves as part-time workers who are there for just for that particular activity and they have something better to do for the rest of the time that they are spending. Over the years, Sheikh Pai has been able to redefine the meaning of unionization. Gone are those days when it was a given that if you're a part of a union, you must be connected to some political party or the other. And apart from the fact that Aifat has no. political affiliations, Sheikh Pai has also managed to bring together smaller workers, unions and

organizations from around the country to interact and learn from one another, to understand power structures and approach the right kind of people to drive change. Now this is a huge shift from over two decades ago when being associated with labour unions was not considered desirable. Also, Professor Abraham made another really interesting point about how. how the nature of unionization is changing. He said how because the workers in these unions often work for international giants like Amazon and Uber, unions can now be locally rooted and globally engaged. And that is the beauty of the New Age union.

And it is people like Sheikh Bhai who are making it happen. He's not just driving change locally. He's also engaging with his counterparts from across the world, to learn and to get ideas about how to negotiate with tech companies, and governments and to empower workers. Our work is our identity. I'm very strongly manned. Our work is our byrifice.

Chah it, whether it's company, whether workers, or, or the government's in between. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Kien, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories,

newsletters and podcast extras. Head to the Ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the Ken website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by Rahal Philipos and I, Sinkda Sharma, and it was edited by Rajiv Sien. Also, a huge shout-out to Aditi and Kavipriya and the rest of our fantastic design team

here at the Ken for the amazing artwork that they make for every Friday special episode of Daybreak. Another special shout-out to Hari Krishna, a member of the Ken's body. podcast team for dubbing parts of our interview with Salahuddin. Thanks, Harry.