In this context, it is important to understand the legislation that seeks to provide social security to platform-based gig workers. 

To whom does this act apply?

The act applies to aggregators – the online intermediary for buyer of goods/user of service and the seller/service provided; any service or work involving gig workers or a platform. For example, a Food Delivery company or a ride hailing company can be considered as an aggregator. 

Who is a Gig Worker?

The act defines Gig Worker as a person who performs work or participates in a work arrangement and earns from such activities outside of traditional employee-employer relationship and who works on a contract that results in a given rate of payment, based on terms and conditions laid down in such contract and includes piece-rate work.  Piece rate work means that the payment is on the basis on the number of units of work performed rather than the time spent on work. For example, food delivery workers earn money based on number of food orders they deliver rather than the number of hours they spend on the job. 

What does the act do?

Mandates registration of workers and aggregators

The Act mandates that the aggregator should provide its database of all platform-based gig workers on-boarded or registered with it, within 60 days of enforcement of the Act. Any registration or on-boarding with the aggregator should be registered with the government automatically. The act also states that every gig worker should get his/her own unique ID. Apart from registration of workers, the act also requires the aggregator to be registered with the government and mandates that the government should publish the list of registered aggregators on a web portal. This makes sure that all eligible beneficiaries are roped into the state’s welfare fold.

Directs to Establish a Fund

The act states that the government shall establish the Platform Based Gig Workers Social Security and Welfare Fund for the benefit of registered platform-based gig workers. The contribution to this fund, apart from a welfare fee charged to the aggregators, would also come from the state government grants and other sources. The Welfare Fee charged to the aggregators would be at a rate of the value of each transaction related to the platform-based gig worker, and will be notified by the government.

Recognises rights of gig workers

The act states that platform-based gig workers have a right to be registered with the government irrespective of the duration of their work and be provided a Unique ID, have access to general and specific social security schemes based on contributions made, have an opportunity at grievance redressal, participate in decisions taken by the board, through representation. 

Constitutes a welfare Board. 

The act constitutes a Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers Welfare Board, consisting of the Minister of Labour of the State, respective secretaries of Departments of Labour, Information Technology, Social Justice, Transport, Finance; two representatives of the gig workers and two representatives of the aggregators, owners and manufacturers of goods and services- all nominated by the State Government; two representatives- one from Civil Society and one from a field which the government thinks should be represented in the Board. There is also requirement that 1/3rd of the Board should constitute women. This board is entrusted with ensuring the various compliances under the Act. The Board is entrusted with registration of both workers and aggregators, ensure the technical aspects of the payment mechanisms are functioning and integrated; monitoring schemes of social security for the registered platform-based gig workers; ensuring grievance redressal etc. 

Others

The act states that a 12% interest will be levied on the late paying of the welfare fee by the aggregator and any aggregator who contravenes the provisions of the act, or the rules made under the act could be levied a fine of up to Rs. 5 Lakh for the first contravention and a fine of up to Rs. 50 Lakh for the second contravention. The act also states that all payments to the workers and the payments generated on platforms shall be mapped to a Central Transaction Information and Management System, (CTIMS).

This tracking system will be useful in making sure there is transparency not only with respect to the payments made for the workers but also with respect to the payments generated on platforms since the Board can monitor them. 

What does this mean for Gig Workers?

This act primarily puts the might of the state behind Gig Workers in their fight to get more rights, in an increasingly neoliberal economic environment, where the nature of their employment is an impediment to their right to social security. Since there is no mandatory responsibility on the Gig Worker to register, there is no disproportionate responsibility on the worker. 

Welcome as it is, this is only a first step since steps are yet to be taken to increase workers’ collective bargaining power with respect to their commission etc. Although these issues might not be solved by legislation, concerted state efforts could facilitate such endeavours. 

(The author is a legal researcher with the organisation)

Related:

What Karnataka thinks today, will India think tomorrow?

Safai Shramik Union raises demands for a law that safeguards rights of sanitation workers: Maharashtra

Zomato Workers win Back Benefits After 4-Day Strike in Thiruvananthapuram

Report Highlights Poor Working Conditions for Gig Workers; Uber, Ola, Amazon Score Zero

The post Rajasthan’s Gig Worker Law, a step towards industrial democracy appeared first on SabrangIndia.

“There is a difference between a law and an administrative order. The minimum guaranteed income bill makes social security a right. The minimum guaranteed income law is historic as it is perhaps the first time since independence that social security measures like pension or minimum days of work have been brought under the ambit of rights,” Gehlot said on July 22, as per a report by the Wire.

CM Gehlot provided that he was waiting for the governor to approve the law, and hopes to frame the rules and have the law implemented by August 15, 2023.

What does the bill entail?

The law guarantees 125 days of work for all families of the state and a minimum of Rs 1,000 as a pension to the elderly, women, widows, and disabled people, with the provision of a 15% increment every year. The Bill brings the rural employment guarantee scheme, the urban employment guarantee scheme, and the pension scheme under one legislation that will be implemented under the Mahatma Gandhi Minimum Income Guarantee Scheme.

A copy of the bill is attached.

What was the need for the bill?

There has been a persistent need for the State to implement universal urban and rural employment schemes ever since the enforcement of the Right to Work began. The NREGA’s passage in 2005 gave the movement a triumph, but the demand for a legal right to urban employment was still unmet at that time. COVID and the ensuing lockdowns re-energized the advocacy for an urban employment programme and served as a stark reminder of the urgent need for income-based social security for urban workers.

Several states, including Jharkhand, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, and Tamil Nadu, introduced urban employment programmes after COVID, but Rajasthan would become the first State in the nation to have a legal entitlement to urban employment with the impending passage of the Minimum Income Guarantee Bill here. It would also be the first State in the nation to extend the NREGA’s legal eligibility by 25 extra days on its own dime through the force of legislation.

A strong answer to the ongoing political discourse- Soochna Evum Rozgar Adhikar Abhiyan

The passing of the said bill has been purported by the concerned citizens of Rajasthan as a strong response to the ongoing political discourse pushed by the Government of India that equates welfare rights to “doles” and “freebies”. As provided by Soochna Evum Rozgar Adhikar Abhiyan (SEVAA), since the formation of Pension Parishad in 2009, there have been campaign and protests demanding legal entitlement for pension which is universal in nature, indexed to inflation and amounting to half the minimum wages. According to them, the insensitivity of the Central Government to these demands and the plight of elderly has been evident with their allocation to the National Social Assistance Programme being limited to Rs 200 per month for BPL families since 2007.

Expressing solidarity and support to the bill passed, the Soochna Evum Rozgar Adhikar Abhiyan stated that the bill would become the first instance in the country of a State guaranteeing a universal minimum pension indexed to inflation by Law. Calling it a significant breakthrough for SEVAA ‘s continual advocacy, the group stated that the approach adopted by Rajasthan to guarantee a minimum income through right to dignified work for all those who can, and dignified social security for all those who cannot. According to them, this move can be summarized in their slogan “Har haath ko kaam do, kaam ka poora daam do, budhaape me aaram do, pension aur samman do!!”

“The said law merely a start, will move forward in this direction if re-elected”- CM Gehlot

On July 22, while addressing a press earlier, CM said that the said law is along the lines of similar social security cover for citizens of developed nations like the US, England, Germany, and other European countries, as per a report by the Wire. During his speech, he also took a dig at Prime Minister Modi and stated, “In India, we haven’t seen such a law. Our Prime Minister claims to be Vishwaguru. I want to ask him what he is doing about problems like hunger, malnourishment, and unemployment in India. Why is he not making social security a right for 140 crore Indians, a figure he often likes to cite?”

Gehlot claimed that the bill was only the beginning and that if his government gets re-elected, his administration would work to extend social security coverage to every resident of the state. “Most state governments provide very poor sums for the pension scheme. The union government gives Rs 200 as a pension to the elderly and Rs 300 if the claimant is above 80 years. Tell me does this amount even qualify as any financial support? That is why we have made Rs 1,000 as the minimum support to the pensioners,” he said, as provided by the Wire. CM Gehlot further added that all the subsequent governments in the state will have to abide by the provisions of the law.

“Rajasthan is a progressive state. Rajasthan was also the first state to implement Right to Information, Right to Health, and the Minimum Employment Guarantee Act before it became national laws,” the Congress chief minister also said.

Clearing any doubts about the funding of the said law, he added that the new law will be financed from the improved financial health of the state under his leadership. “We have not introduced any new tax. Instead, our revenues have increased by 17%. Our fiscal deficit has also come down from 9.25% from the time of the BJP government to around 3% now,” as per the Wire.

Related:

Rajasthan’s Health Law: An ongoing saga of promises and protests

Karnataka Budget 2023-24: CM announces Rs. 4 lakh life & accident insurance policy for gig workers

Karnataka: Gruha Shakti scheme offers free travel to women, increasing footfall and revenue dramatically

The post Rajasthan passes Minimum Guaranteed Income Bill, brings social security measures under ambit of rights appeared first on SabrangIndia.

More elderly people may soon be pinching pennies. docent/Shutterstock.com

But that meager goal is in serious jeopardy. My research shows more Americans are increasingly struggling to save enough for their later years. And one of the main ways they have left, Social Security, is just 15 years away from going broke.

This leads me to ask one question: Do Americans want to return to a time when so many of their elders died in poverty?
 

A wobbly retirement

Since its advent in 1935, Social Security has been one leg of Americans’ three-legged retirement stool. The other two have been the wide availability of defined benefit retirement plans and personal savings supported by broadly shared economic prosperity.

This stool turned out to be remarkably successful by reducing the poverty rate among Americans aged 65 and older from as high as 78 percent in 1939 to 35 percent in 1959 – as Social Security benefits began kicking in – to 10 percent by 1995.

But in recent decades, the defined benefit plans and worker savings legs have become increasingly wobbly. If they break entirely, saving Social Security becomes even more vital.
 

Businesses shed pension risks

For much of the 20th century, defined benefit plans promised an annual lifetime payment determined by salary and played an important role in the financial security of many households with residents over 65.

Rising life expectancies required companies to pay out benefits for much longer, making them more expensive and risky. Coupled with uncertain investment returns, companies have been getting rid of them in a hunt for savings and more profits for shareholders. Only 16 percent of Fortune 500 companies offered such plans in 2017, compared with 59 percent just two decades ago.

The Department of Labor reports that the number of active participants in these pension programs as a percent of the labor force peaked in 1981 at 28 percent. Only about 9 percent participated in 2015.

Instead, they’ve shifted to defined contribution plans like the 401(k), placing the financial risk of retirement on workers.

That might have been OK, had working and middle-class Americans continued to share in the nation’s prosperity.

United Airlines flight attendants lost their defined pension plan in 2005. Reuters/Paul Yeung PY/PN
 

The American dream fades for many

But increasingly, that is not happening.

That’s in part because employment growth in the U.S. is now concentrated among highly skilled workers and low-paying service sector jobs, leaving fewer and fewer positions that provide enough income to set aside money for savings.

My research shows job opportunities are increasing most rapidly in positions that pay less than US$30,000 thanks to automation as well as the growing demand for personal services – and the accompanying low wages. These types of jobs do not share as much in the fruits of economic growth.

In short, the American dream, characterized by the hope that children will have a higher standard of living than their parents, is fading. Ninety percent of children born in 1940 made more than their parents at age 30, but only 50 percent of those born in 1984 had higher income at that age.

This means many more Americans will not be able to set aside much money for retirement, whether in terms of personal savings or a plan like a 401(k) or an IRA. And it’s why personal savings is the shortest leg on the retirement financial stool and it will become shorter as a result of widening income inequality.

Without more revenue, Social Security will have to cut benefits by 2034. Even if current benefits are sustained, increasing low wage employment will result in lower benefits because they are determined by lifetime earnings.

Social Security checks may get a lot smaller down the road. AP Photo/Bradley C. Bower
 

How not to save Social Security

That brings us back to Social Security, perhaps the last leg still standing for tens of millions of Americans as they head toward their twilight years in the coming decades. Increasing benefits for some Social Security recipients is required to avoid increasing poverty among retirees.

The system was designed so that today’s workers pay for today’s retirees. Back in 1960, there were 5.1 workers for every recipient. That ratio is projected to fall to 2.6 in 2020.

This fact, coupled with increasing life expectancy, is behind the system’s impending fiscal crisis, putting the Social Security Trust Fund into deficit.

Republicans have typically argued that the best way to fix the system is to cut benefits and encourage more workers to save through through savings plans like 401(k)s and IRAs. A bill that would erase the Social Security deficit for the rest of this century would cut benefits for 75 percent of recipients – requiring them to save on their own, which is not an option for workers stuck in low-wage employment.

The only alternative for those financially unprepared for retirement will be to continue to work into their 70s and beyond. But substantial evidence has shown that opportunities to work in the retirement years are greatest for the best-educated and highly skilled. That leaves the rest – the vast majority – in dire straits.

The result seems inevitable: More Americans will grow old in poverty.
 

A commitment to retirees

Whether Americans will tolerate more poverty among retirees is a political question. And I believe this debate should be about values as much as affordability.

The fact that other highly developed countries spend more to support their retirees makes clear the reducing poverty among retirees is a matter of commitment, not affordability.

So if Americans agree that our elders should never again return to having to age in poverty, there are several ways we can shore up the Social Security system.

One involves extending the Social Security tax to include all earnings: In 2018 it was levied on only the first $128,000 of income. Another is more controversial but may be necessary: use general government revenue, financed by higher taxes on the wealthy, to permanently ensure Social Security remains a bedrock of retirement.

While increasing taxes is hard, the only question is whether we have the political will to do so.
 

David W. Rasmussen, James H. Gapinski Professor of Economics, Florida State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Social Security helped slash elderly poverty to 9.2 percent in the 20th century – that triumph is now in jeopardy appeared first on SabrangIndia.

An elderly farmer delivering grain at a paddy procurement centre near Raipur, Chhattisgarh. Over a third of India’s elderly people–38%–continue to work, according to the National Sample Survey Office.

 
Our very first question–whether she was a beneficiary of the government’s non-contributory pension scheme for the aged–irritated her. She explained that she was indeed a beneficiary but did not want to be one. Local officials had refused to give her work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA, the law that governs the key central government employment guarantee programme) since she received Rs 500 a month as pension under the scheme.
 
In a clear violation of MGNREGA, Kamla Devi was informed that the pension was the reason she had been denied work under MGNREGA. She was clear that she wanted to continue working to earn a living, not just because the pension is too little, but, as she explained, because she was still capable of labouring.
 
In the block headquarters of Kotda in Udaipur district, the study took us to Irfan’s house (he uses one name). He put his age at close to 60 years and said he had spent the better part of his life transporting loads on his head for a fee. Having remarried in his old age, Irfan lived with his young wife and 10-year-old son. He said he suffered from severe back pain and muscle soreness, and would like nothing more than to stop working. However, between his son’s school fees and his own medical bills, he had no choice but to work. Recently, his wife had also begun to look for work to share his burden.
 
In Rajasthan, women aged 55 years and above and men aged 58 years and above receive a monthly pension of Rs 500 as part of the Centre-led non-contributory social pension scheme, the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme. The central government contributes Rs 200 for those aged 60 and above and Rs 500 for those aged 80 and above and falling below the poverty line. The Rajasthan state government has achieved near universal coverage under this scheme, entitling a minimum of Rs 500  per month to each beneficiary. However, the amount is so grossly inadequate–at just over Rs 16 a day, it would not buy half a litre of milk–that it leaves the elderly who have no other financial resources with no real choice but to work for a living. Yet, whether they find work is subject to lingering prejudices, as in Devi’s case.
 
No income and social security
 
Governments across the world provide pensions for varying reasons. However, the shared logic behind old age pension is to enable those beyond a certain age to maintain a reasonable standard of living without having to engage in paid labour. In India, this is empirically true for people who receive assured monthly pensions following their retirement from work, but, in the non-formal sector, people do not retire from work at any stipulated age.
 
The participation of the elderly in the workforce is all pervasive, particularly in the unorganised sector that employs the majority of Indians, without formal conditions of employment.
 
According to the 68th round of the employment-unemployment survey 2011-12 conducted by the National Sample Survey Office, over a third of India’s elderly people–38%–continue to work. Extrapolating from the Census 2011 figure of 103 million elderly people in the country would put the number of elderly people who continue to remain in paid employment at 39 million.
 
The New Delhi-based Centre for Equity Studies (CES) conducted a study–unpublished as yet–in seven locations across rural and urban Rajasthan from August to October 2016, in which trained field investigators interviewed 791 people above the age of 55 years to understand people’s experience of ageing without income security. Of the total sample of 791 respondents, 57% were women and 43% men; 59% reported to be engaged in at least one remunerative job. Field investigators approached every elderly person (above the age of 55 years) in every house in a given location. Those who met Rajasthan’s exclusion criteria for state old age pensions–by receiving a job-related pension and/or being an income tax payee–answered fewer and truncated questions, but their numbers were quite limited (16 individuals).
 
A key finding of the study was that, in the absence of adequate income and social security, the elderly lack real choice in determining the extent, duration and nature of their engagement with paid work.
 
Little choice but to work
 
The survey asked one question to all respondents:
 
“Assuming a situation wherein you receive an adequate pension to sustain yourself, would you:
 
1. Work as much as before (before receiving adequate pensions) 2. Continue work but less 3. Not work at all.”
 

Source: Centre for Equity Studies; N=791
 
The elderly respondents varied vastly in how they viewed their engagement with work: Over a fourth said they would continue to work as before if given an adequate pension, but nearly half said they would work less (23%) or not work at all (25%).
 
Of those who said they would continue to work as before, 86% said they were currently engaged in work. In contrast, 32% of those who said they would not work said they were currently engaged in regular remunerative work.
 

Source: Centre for Equity Studies; P Value: 0.00, N=599
 
How much would an adequate pension be? Another survey question asked respondents to state a monetary amount that would cover their basic needs. The average amount cited was Rs 1,875–more than three times the monthly pension at present–while the median value was Rs 1,500, three times the current monthly pension.
 
Adequacy is a concept that cannot be defined in monetary terms alone, yet even in purely monetary terms, people understood adequacy of pension differently. Those respondents who said they would continue working as in the past put the average value of an “adequate” pension at Rs 1,600–over three times the existing old age pension–while those who said they wished to work less or not at all put the amount at Rs 2,000–which is four times the pension given. Clearly, they saw adequacy in relation to their own capacity to work and supplement their pension, as opposed to their age in and of itself.
 
At the same time, even the highest of the amounts cited as adequate, Rs 2,000 per month, amounts to less than half the existing minimum wage and less than a fourth of the national per capita income.
 
Gender affects perceptions
 
There was a stark difference in the responses of male and female respondents to the question whether they would continue to work but in a reduced capacity if given an adequate pension. A greater proportion of the male respondents (36%) looked forward to negotiating the volume of work, as compared with female respondents (26%). However, an equal proportion of men and women–a little over  one-third–said they would continue to work irrespective of the pension. This suggests that other considerations aside, women found it difficult to
Table 3
conceive of a scenario where they would be able to negotiate lesser work than their current work burden.
 
More women (36%) than men (28%) said they would not work at all.
 

Source: Centre for Equity Studies; P Value: 0.01, N=599
 
Elderly men are proportionally more likely to work less when given an adequate pension as compared with women, more of whom would rather not do any paid work at all.
 
India has generally low participation of women in paid work–at present about 25%, according to the International Labour Organisation. It is even lower for women above the age of 60 years, according to a 2016 report, by A. Bheemeshwar Reddy in the International Journal of Social Economics, which argues this could be because women’s relationship with paid work itself is far more complex compared with men’s. Because of the pervasive gender-based division of labour, women perform tasks across the spectrum–contributing to remunerative chores at the workplace, often for a lower monetary value than men’s work, and to non-remunerative chores at home.
 
Hence, in this study, it is difficult to understand what women mean when they say they will not work at all, CES found. For women, whose labour is unrecognised in multiple ways, often by themselves, retirement is a misleading concept.
 
Pension, the key enabler
 
Without adequate pension, it is impossible to imagine a scenario in which the elderly poor can choose whether to work or not. To ensure a dignified standard of living for the elderly, timely and sufficient pensions are imperative.
 
This choice of working or not has always existed for those who receive assured pensions after retiring from their jobs. This choice must be extended to all older people.
 
Notes:
 

• The study was conducted in Rajasthan in partnership with Astha Sansthan, UNNATI and Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Rajasthan. A more detailed discussion on old age pensions can be found in the “India Exclusion Report 2016” due to be released in May 2017 by CES and Yoda Press.
• Kamla Devi’s name has been changed to protect her identity.

Update: The story was updated to reflect that the number of elderly Indians who continue to work, when extrapolated from the representative NSSO survey, is 39 million.
 
(Sampat is a Delhi-based researcher. Dey is a researcher with the Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 
 

The post Inadequate Pensions Leave India’s Elderly No Choice But To Work appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Pitching for labour reforms, the survey said formal employment could increase by offering employees choices when they start employment.

These include allowing them to decide whether they want 12 per cent employee contribution to be deducted from their salary.

The survey also suggested providing the workers a choice between Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and National Pension Scheme (NPS).

It also suggested that the workers should decide whether their health insurance premiums go to Employees State Insurance (ESI) or a private health insurance of their choice.

However, it cautioned that this choice should be exercised by employees, not employers, and today?s status quo should continue to be available to all employees.

The key point is to offer choice to employees, which will also result in competition for service providers such as the EPFO and Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), it said.

In the present scenario, the workers are mandatorily covered under the social security schemes run by the EPFO and ESIC in formal sector.

Given the difficulty of reforming labor laws per se, the thrust could be to move towards affording greater choice to workers which would foster competition amongst service providers, it said.

At the same time, it said that there could be a gradual move to ensure that at least compliance with the central labour laws is made “paperless, presenceless and cashless”.

It also pointed towards the multiplicity of labour laws and the difficulty in their compliance, describing these as impediments to the industrial development and employment generation.

At present, there are 39 Central labour laws which have been broadly proposed to be grouped into four or five Labour Codes on functional basis with the enactment of special laws for small manufacturing units
 

The post Give workers option to choose social security schemes: Survey appeared first on SabrangIndia.

^a “Funds will be made available through PPP mode under the National Health Mission, to provide dialysis services in all district hospitals.”

The 2016-17 budget also continues the long-standing trend of ignoring the social sector at the expense of defence:

The post Words missing from the budget: social security, nutrition, children appeared first on SabrangIndia.