Karnataka govt promulgates ordinance to protect interest of gig workers

Bengaluru, May 27 (PTI) The Karnataka government on Tuesday promulgated an ordinance aimed at providing social security to platform-based gig workers.

The ordinance further proposes the establishment of a welfare board and creation of a dedicated welfare fund for the gig workers.

The government said, "this is an ordinance to protect the rights of platform based gig workers, to place obligations on aggregator or platform in relation to social security, occupational health and safety, transparency in automated monitoring and decision-making systems, to provide dispute resolution mechanisms, to establish a Welfare Board and create a welfare fund for platform based Gig workers, to register platform based Gig workers and aggregator or platform in the State.” It further said the Karnataka Legislative Assembly and the Karnataka Legislative Council are not in session and the Governor of Karnataka is satisfied that the circumstances exist which render it necessary for him to take immediate action to promulgate an ordinance for the purpose.

The ‘Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers Welfare Board’ will have 15 members. It will be headed by the Labour Minister.

The board will have four gig workers, four representatives of the gig aggregators and two representatives from the civil society with experience in the field. They will all be nominated by the state government.

The government may consider an expert from the Information Technology (IT) sector to provide support in data collection and IT system.

The aggregator will have to provide to the Board its database of all gig workers onboarded or registered with them within 45 days from the date of commencement of the Ordinance.

All platform based Gig workers onboarded or registered with any platform after the commencement of this Ordinance should be electronically registered by the Board, within thirty days.

The aggregator should update the board about any changes such as increase or decrease in number of gig workers in the data.

The board will maintain a database of gig workers in the state along with the details of their contractual engagement with one or more aggregator or platform, notwithstanding the duration or time of engagement with any platform.

The Board will also register and generate a unique ID to every gig worker who is onboarded by one or more aggregator or platform operating in the State.

The government also made it clear that all contracts entered into between aggregator and platform-based gig workers should comply with the provisions of the ordinance.

The ordinance stated that any aggregator should not terminate or deactivate a gig worker without giving valid reasons in writing and with prior notice of 14 days and following the principles of natural justice.

The Karnataka cabinet cleared the bill on April 11. Since the legislature session is not in place, the government opted for the ordinance route to provide security to the gig workers.

Congress sources said party MP Rahul Gandhi had asked the government to formulate policies to protect the interest of gig workers. PTI GMS GMS ROH