Abstract

Gig economy in India, supported extensively by platforms such as Uber, Swiggy, and Zomato, is providing employment to millions in flexible arrangements. These platform workers are treated as independent contractors, which keeps them outside the ambit of traditional labor laws in most respects, especially regarding occupational safety. This paper investigates the extent of protection and benefits extended to platform workers by existing Indian workplace safety laws, particularly the Labour Codes enacted in 2019-2020 and the Social Security Code, 2020. Statutory analysis, review of case law (including IFAT v. Union of India), and comparative insights from UK, US and EU will lay bare the glaring legal gaps. Innovations at the state-level include promising welfare mechanisms such as accident insurance and algorithmic transparency in Rajasthan’s 2023 Act and Karnataka’s 2024 Bill, but they do not go as far as bringing workers in under the definition of employee. Judgments have so far not been able to put an end to ambiguities regarding employment status, thus stymying the application of mandates regarding safety. While the Union Budget, 2025, and Bill proposed to set up a national law are progressive, they suffer from the usual malady of delayed regulations and resistance from platforms. Reclassification of gig workers along occupational safety laws with the filling of mandatory protections, harmonizing ‘all-too-fragmentary’state initiatives under the umbrella of a national framework is essential to maintain constitutional rights and equitable labor standards in the digital economy of India, concludes the article.

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