Abstract
Ramaswamy presents an analytical discussion of the problem of non-standard employment and labour law in the US Gig economy. The ‘gig economy’ and the emergence of precarious nature of work have been at the centre of legal challenges to labour management practices followed by companies like Uber. Focusing on the employee versus independent contractor distinction in the US labour laws, this chapter draws our attention to challenges posed by new technologies to standard labour law definition of employees and the associated provision of social security benefits. Learning from this complex debate is argued to be critical for India undergoing economic transformation and services-led growth.
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Notes
- 1.
Throughout this chapter, British spelling is used. Consequently, the word ‘labour’ in the original American sources has been spelt as labour to maintain consistency.
- 2.
See New York Times, 12 July 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/13/business/rising-economic-insecurity-tied-to-decades-long-trend-in-employment-practices.html. Accessed June 10, 2018.
- 3.
Similar developments have also taken place in the European Union. See Maselli et al. (2016). We are not going into the European Union cases in this chapter.
- 4.
See Maselli et al. (2016) for more examples and discussion of definitional issues of on-demand economy.
- 5.
A 2014 survey conducted by The Freelancers Union identifies more than 53 million Americans, or roughly 34 per cent of the labour force, doing at least some freelance work. (Cited in Hamilton project 2016).
- 6.
Katz and Krueger (2016) have reported a significant rise in the incidence of alternative work arrangements in the US economy from 2005 to 2015 based on a survey of contingent workers in 2015. The percentage of workers engaged in alternative work arrangements is estimated to have increased from 10.7 per cent in February 2005 to 15.8 per cent in late 2015.
- 7.
A working paper by Jackson, Looney and Ramnath at the US Treasury Department contains detailed estimates of individuals who earn income outside of the employee-employer relationship, for example, not from wages. See Jackson et al. (2017).
- 8.
See Singh (2015) for a detailed and critical discussion on the definition of a worker in the Indian labor law and the judicial interpretations.
- 9.
Discussion in this paragraph is borrowed from Carlson (2001).
- 10.
See Fact Sheet 2016 of The Department for Professional Employees, a coalition of 24 national unions in the US, available at their website http://dpeaflcio.org/programs-publications/issue-fact-sheets/misclassification-of-employees-as-independent-contractors, accessed on 2 June 2018.
- 11.
- 12.
Other cases involve companies like Lyft and Grubhub among others. See Sprague (2015) for a discussion.
- 13.
This account is based on the discussion in (Izvanariu 2016), who has discussed the ride-share company cases in greater detail. Several other legal scholars have also discussed the problem of misclassification problem in ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft.
- 14.
A ‘class action lawsuit’ is one in which a group of people with the same or similar injuries caused by the same product or action (say employment practices) sue the defendant as a group. Most class action suits are resolved through settlements in the US.
- 15.
Deknatel and Hoff-Downing (2015) mention that the State of Massachusetts used the ABC rule way back in 2004.
- 16.
The original source for this information is Kim (2018). However, it is available in many other reports not cited here.
- 17.
Points in this paragraph is largely borrowed from Kennedy (2016, 2).
- 18.
Seth Harris of Cornell University and Alan Krueger of Princeton University propose the creation of a new legal category of workers, to be called ‘independent workers’ in their working paper commissioned by the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution. See Seth and Krueger (2015).
- 19.
Portability idea is also suggested by Lawrence Summers. See Hill (2015) for further details.
- 20.
See Live Mint story available at https://www.livemint.com/Companies/ck6h9KKDL9Aw1SCgzvMLRM/The-building-of-UrbanClap-one-ondemand-service-at-a-time.html. Accessed 14 June 2018.
- 21.
“India is the second country in the world where freelance work is on the rise after the US”, says a report by Truelancer, a global freelancing marketplace (Khetarpal 2016).
- 22.
See the discussion by Alok Prasanna Kumar (Kumar 2017a) in “Analysis: Ola’s contract with drivers shows they’ve got a raw deal”.
- 23.
A case is pending in Delhi High Court filed by Delhi Commercial Driver Union that has raised the question of workman status of Ola and Uber Drivers (Mandhani 2017).
- 24.
The details are available at the EPFO website. https://epfindia.gov.in/site_en/For_Employers.php?id=sm1_index.
- 25.
The pension scheme is financed by transferring 8.33 per cent of the employers’ contribution from the provident fund.
- 26.
See also the article written by a Supreme Court Advocate Kumar (2017b).
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Ramaswamy, K.V. (2019). Non-standard Employment, Labour Laws and Social Security: Learning from the US Gig Economy Debate. In: Shyam Sundar, K.R. (eds) Globalization, Labour Market Institutions, Processes and Policies in India. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7111-0_11
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