Research Papers

Conference/ Workshop Papers

'Gig Workspace, Labour Process and Regulations in India', co-authored by Avi Singh Majithia and Prof. Roopa Madhav with Prof. Amrita Ghatak (Gujarat Institute of Development Research, India). Avi Singh Majithia shall present this paper at the 9th Regulating for Decent Work Conference to be held between 02 to 04 July 2025 at International Labour Organization, Geneva.

Abstract: The rise of gig work and the platform economy is reshaping how we view work, blurring the lines between employment and entrepreneurship, while challenging traditional labour protections and regulatory frameworks. Despite employment policy and employment generation programmes, the majority of India’s workforce is informal. Recent advancements of the sharing economy and gig work reinforce informality in many occupations. This phenomenon goes beyond India wherein advancements in technology and artificial intelligence have led to a surge in gig and platform-based work. Thus, digital production sites have become key spaces, redefining employer-employee relationships, particularly in terms of control (both spatial and temporal), supervision, feedback mechanisms, and working conditions.

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This paper borrows ideas from Labour Process Theory (LPT) (Braverman, 1974) to analyse these transformations but argues that the reality of gig work in the Indian context goes beyond LPT. The geographically tethered model as well as the cloudwork model (Woodcock and Graham, 2020) better explain these shifts. The changing labour process dilutes the employer-employee relationship and commodifies labour, raising critical questions about worker protections, regulatory oversight, and worker autonomy.

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At the heart of these transformations is worker agency, since the platform economy has a conflicting promise of autonomy. Platforms categorise workers as independent contractors but exercise significant control similar to a more standard form of employment. However, unlike standard employment where labour protections and benefits are embedded in contracts, gig workers often lack access to basic entitlements like health insurance, pensions and workplace protections. Although the Government of India introduced four labour codes in 2020 to help create a more effective regulatory environment, addressing the gig-workspace is not straightforward owing to the complexities of identification and codification of occupations and employment relationships.

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Drawing on examples from primary, secondary and tertiary sectors in India within the gig workspace, this paper focuses on: (a) disaggregating labour through definitions, (b) digital production sites and commodification of labour, (c) dilution of the typical employer-employee relationship and its role in labour protections, (d) algorithmic control and their connection to worker well-being, and (e) the dynamic movement between self-employment and gig work in the platform economy and the role of worker agency.

References \

Braverman, H. (1974). Labor and Monopoly Capital. The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York: Monthly Review Press)

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Woodcock, Jamie and Graham, Mark. (2020). The Gig Economy: A Critical Introduction, Cambridge: Polity