AI Supply Chains, Gig Work & India’s Missing Labour Protections

By Ritvik Gupta and Sreya Nair

Indian platform work regulations must discuss algorithms and outsourcing to improve working conditions and business practices

Regulating platform work 

Amidst growing research, discussion, and labour action, India’s expanding platform economy faces increasing regulation. The Centre has notified the Code on Social Security, 2020, and states like Karnataka and Bihar have pursued measures. Beyond issues like grievance redressal and social security, there are other, urgent aspects of the platform economy that require regulation. As policy develops, regulation must cover diverse sectors of platform work, scrutinise and restrain the use of algorithmic management, and hold transnational supply chains accountable.

Policy needs to consider a diverse platform workforce, covering areas like the online gig economy and artificial intelligence (AI) supply chains. Tech sectors like social media, robotics and AI models rely on a global workforce of data workers and content moderators. Some of these sectors’ problems can resemble those of location-based work, like low pay and sudden termination.

However, they also present issues that warrant additional measures, such as mental health risks from repeatedly viewing distressing content and harsh metrics of accuracy, speed, and task volume. Part of the problem lies in companies’ attempts at automating and delegating the process of managing people. Thus, policy has to engage with a wide range of platform workers and their problems.

Algorithmic management and the harshness of platform work

Companies’ use of algorithmic management is a major aspect of the platform economy’s functioning and labour precarity. These systems can play roles like assigning pay and gigs, suspending or removing workers, and measuring productivity. Some problems connected to algorithmic management include diminished and unstable pay, sudden termination from work without adequate explanation, and demanding metrics.

Enabling workers to seek information on automated systems is not a panacea for algorithmic management. The pressure and metrics imposed on workers, and the surveillance of labour, are two related problems that cannot be rectified by transparency alone.

Firms’ algorithmic management must abide by restrictions and interventions that uphold workers’ safety and dignity. Provisions must curb unforgiving and extractive processes like extreme metrics, encourage safety-preserving practices like removing gig/task completion times, and introduce a dynamic of collective bargaining and co-design.

In addition to restraining platforms’ data collection and decision-making, policy should enable labour resistance to excessive control and pressure, and push for the development of more accommodating systems. 

One useful example is the European Union’s (EU) Platform Work Directive, which prohibits companies from using data like workers’ communications and…