It’s a surrealistic situation out there. There was a time when workers, even the casual and temporary ones, had their trade unions to speak up on their behalf. Things have changed.
It’s a hire-and-fire regime now. So much so one needs a stand-up comic like Kunal Kamra to fill the space vacated by traditional leaders.
What do you make of Kamra’s latest salvo against quickcomm delivery companies like Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy for exploiting their delivery workers – euphemistically called ‘delivery partners’ or ‘gig workers’?
Responding to Blinkit CEO Albinder Dhindsa boasting of the lakhs of condoms delivered over New Year’s eve, Kamra responded with tweets demanding Dhindsa first come clean on how much he pays his ‘delivery partners’.
Pointing to the dark side of quick commerce, he accused the promoters of operating as “landlords without owning land" and, while portraying themselves as innovative entrepreneurs, failing to provide fair wages and working conditions.
A few weeks ago, Kunal Kamra stepped in for consumers of electric 2 wheelers (e2ws) manufactured by Ola.
While it should have been consumer forums who should have called out Ola promoter Bhavish Aggarwal for the poor after-sales services, it fell on the shoulders of a comedian to highlight the plight of thousands of e2w buyers who had been left holding a lemon.
Voice of the voiceless
He’s no Datta Samant or a George Fernandes, but more power to Kamra as he steps forward as the voice of the voiceless. Social media is full of delivery groups working for the Zeptos and Blinkits singing their appreciation for Kamra taking up their cause.
But what has happened to the institutional forms of collective bargaining? The trade unions and grassroots organizations who traditionally stood up against work place exploitation and for consumer rights?
A variety of reasons since the dawn of liberalization in 1991 have contributed to the decline of organized trade unionism. The slow erosion of the public sector and its institutionalised trade unions, together with the rise of a large informal, services sector has led to the current laissez-faire regime. High unemployment too has worked against permanent tenures and encouraged ‘casualization’ of jobs.
The government has also contributed to the chaos. Keen on a business-friendly environment, it has through the Labour Codes (Repeal) Act 2021 repealed a clutch of 8 labour laws including The Maternity Benefit Act, 1972 and The Payment of Gratuity Act, 1961 reducing the legal rights of employees. It is in this vacuum that people like Kunal Kamra are finding new ways to flag violation of workplace rights.
This does not for a moment mean we can wish away the striding scale of e-commerce operations. The penetration of the internet and the ease of online shopping has been a push factor impossible to roll back.
Growing at an exponential rate, the market value of the e-commerce industry in India is estimated to be $123 billion in calendar 2024. And with the rapid expansion of the Amazons and Flipkarts, this number is expected to touch $ 300 billion by 2030.
More recently, quick commerce companies, backed by huge investments, have found a new niche – impulse buying by consumers; and ability to deliver in 8 to 20 minutes round the clock. Zepto, in a year-ender boast claimed it had delivered 2 crore snacks between 12 am and 4 am, 28,000 massages in Bengaluru and 481 watermelons to a single Chennai user!
Though still small, the gross merchandise value (GMV) of quick commerce, mainly from groceries, increased from Rs 50 crore in FY2022 to Rs 330 crore in FY2024 – a 280 percent expansion.
Breaching the law
The problem is it is not just exploitation of delivery boys, who are slave-driven to execute orders at the expense of traffic violations and their own safety. The bigger concern is the threat they pose to the booming neighbourhood retail networks. E-commerce has been under the scanner as under the terms of foreign direct investment (FDI) they are required to be mere digital ‘marketplaces’ and not work as stockists or vendors; or discriminate or favour specific vendors.
The apex body of traders, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), has in fact launched a campaign against quick commerce companies, alleging that they had raised Rs 56,000 crore through foreign investments and were driving more than 30 million mom-and-pop retail outlets to the ground in violation of the government’s FDI policies and the Competition Act.
In a recent letter to Union Commerce minister Piyush Goyal, CAIT National President B C Bhartia accused quick commerce platforms of misusing FDI funds to create an ecosystem of control over suppliers, dominate inventory, and arbitrarily determine product prices.
Piyush Goyal, who has a large trader constituency to cater to, in an outburst in August last had targeted Amazon voicing concern that the use of ‘predatory pricing’ was eliminating competition.
However, there has been not much follow up action since. That brings us back to Kunal Kamra and his tweets. He is not a union leader; at best he has drawn attention to the ‘dark side’ of the new retail industry. Considering the large economy of small retail and the number of families it supports, and the threat of being eliminated by the Blinkits and Zeptos, a closer look at the latter’s unscrupulous practices is long overdue.