ILO gig-work convention: When the International Labour Organisation adopted Convention No. 193 on decent work in the platform economy on June 12, India’s delegation split. The Convention passed by 406 votes to eight, with 36 abstentions. India’s employer and worker delegates supported it. The government delegate abstained.
That is worth examining because employers and trade unions do not often find themselves on the same side of a new labour standard. The government’s reservations were familiar. India had argued during the negotiations that countries needed room to develop regulation suited to their labour markets and that premature international commitments could constrain a fast-changing industry. Given India’s shortage of regular jobs and the role that platforms have played in creating earning opportunities, the concern cannot be dismissed.
It can, however, become less persuasive with time. Convention No. 193 is the first international labour standard devoted to the platform economy. Ratification is voluntary, but the Convention establishes a reference point on questions that India itself is now trying to address, including employment status, pay, social security and the use of automated systems at work.
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India’s gig economy has outrun its regulation
India’s gig workforce has grown quickly. The Economic Survey 2025-26 estimates that the number increased from 7.7 million in FY2021 to about 12 million in FY2025, representing more than 2% of total employment. NITI Aayog has projected 23.5 million gig workers by 2029-30, or 6.7% of non-agricultural employment. A later study from the V.V. Giri National Labour Institute projects 61.6 million by 2047, though a projection over two decades is best read as an indication of direction rather than as a forecast.
The legal framework has started catching up. The Code on Social Security, 2020 created national definitions of gig workers, platform workers and aggregators, and its provisions came into force in November 2025. Rajasthan had already enacted a dedicated state law in 2023. Karnataka and Bihar legislated in 2025, while Jharkhand and Telangana followed.
These laws represent a considerable change from the earlier position, when gig workers were largely invisible to labour legislation. They provide for registration, welfare boards, social-security funds and grievance procedures. Some of the newer laws also address automated monitoring and decision-making.
The weakness is that most of this architecture has been built around welfare. That leaves unresolved the more difficult question of the relationship between a platform and the person who works through it.
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The employment question cannot be avoided
The Social Security Code defines a gig worker as someone who earns from activities outside the traditional employer-employee relationship. The ILO Convention approaches the issue differently. Employment status is to be determined mainly by the circumstances in which the work is performed rather than by the description used in the contract.
It does not follow that all platform workers should be classified as employees. The point is that classification cannot end with the platform calling someone an independent contractor.
Consider the degree of control that some platforms exercise. They may determine the fare, allocate the job, measure performance, influence access to future assignments and decide whether a worker remains on the platform. At some point, the distinction between organising a marketplace and directing labour becomes difficult to sustain. Indian law does not yet provide a satisfactory national test for deciding where that point lies.
Pay raises a related problem. Convention No. 193 requires timely payment for platform workers. Its minimum-wage and expense provisions apply directly to those in an employment relationship, while countries are asked to consider extending similar protection to others.
India has no national earnings floor for gig workers who remain outside employment law. The Code on Wages applies to employees, while gig workers have been given a separate status under social-security legislation. Jharkhand has gone further by providing for minimum remuneration linked to the time and distance involved in a task. Elsewhere, what a worker takes home still depends largely on platform pricing, commissions, incentives and costs such as fuel or vehicle maintenance.
This makes headline earnings a poor guide to actual income. A delivery worker paid ₹X for a task may have to meet costs that an employee would normally expect an employer to bear. Any serious discussion of minimum earnings therefore has to distinguish between gross receipts and income after unavoidable work expenses.
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ILO gig-work convention: Algorithms are becoming a labour-law issue
Indian regulation has moved further on algorithmic management than is sometimes acknowledged. Karnataka, Telangana, Bihar and Jharkhand require varying degrees of disclosure about automated systems that monitor workers or influence decisions affecting them. Rajasthan’s earlier law does not go as far.
The ILO Convention sets a higher benchmark. Workers should be told how significant automated decisions are made and should have access to review, with human involvement, when such decisions affect their earnings or continued access to work.
This is becoming important because deactivation can amount to dismissal in economic terms even when the law does not recognise an employment relationship. A driver or delivery worker who loses access to a platform may lose the principal source of income without receiving the procedural protections that normally accompany termination from employment.
India’s Digital Personal Data Protection framework deals with the collection and use of personal data. It was not designed to answer such labour questions. Whether a worker can demand an explanation for a rating, challenge an automated suspension or seek human review of a deactivation decision requires rules directed at the employment relationship itself.
The reliance on welfare boards deserves scrutiny as well. India has decades of experience with construction-worker welfare boards, and that experience has been mixed. Registration has often been incomplete, benefits uneven and large sums have remained unspent in some states. Creating another board and another cess is easier than ensuring that workers receive useful benefits.
Platform-worker laws should learn from that record instead of reproducing its administrative weaknesses.
Collective bargaining presents another difficulty. Convention No. 193 recognises freedom of association and collective bargaining in the platform economy. India’s labour codes were framed around conventional employment relationships. Gig workers placed outside those relationships do not have an equally clear route to bargain collectively over rates, commissions or working conditions. Giving a trade union representative a seat on a welfare board is not the same thing.
India need not rush into ratification
There is no compelling case for India to ratify Convention No. 193 immediately. Platform businesses differ considerably, the employment effects of regulation need to be studied, and the Centre and states are still experimenting with different models.
But abstention should not become an excuse for postponement.
India now has enough experience to frame a more coherent national approach. It needs a method for deciding when the degree of platform control creates an employment relationship. Workers who remain independent contractors need some protection against earnings being driven below reasonable levels once commissions and unavoidable costs are taken into account. Decisions that can cut off a person’s livelihood should be explainable and open to review.
Social security remains necessary. It cannot settle questions of employment status, pay or bargaining power.
Nor is a patchwork of state statutes likely to work indefinitely for an industry whose platforms, workers and customers routinely operate across state boundaries. Different states can continue experimenting, but the basic principles should eventually converge.
The government’s vote in Geneva gave India room to work out its own answers. Convention No. 193 now makes it easier to see which questions those answers must address.
Kaushiki Sanyal is a Fellow ay JustJobs Network.