By Dr. Gyan Pathak
Gig workers of India have concluded the year 2025 with an all-India strike action on the last day, December 31, 2025, demanding fair wages and working conditions, which have undergone marked deterioration in the last three months. It happened despite the Union government’s repeated claim that they have been doing everything possible for the welfare of the gig workers in the country, including them under the New Labour Codes notified on November 21, 2025. If things continue in this direction, the year 2026 will witness larger and stronger protests and strike action of gig workers.
The nationwide New Year’s Eve strike of the gig workers has special significance, even though it got mixed response from delivery workers, chiefly because the nature of their protest against low wages and lack of security benefits. Coming in the heels of the notification of the new labour codes, which the Centre says, has taken care of the welfare of the gig workers, the strike surprised many, but also received massive solidarity from socially-conscious consumer-citizens. On the other hand, India Inc has flagged several concerns with the New Labour Codes, including separate provisions for gig workers that make the rules confusing according to industry experts, while workers associations and labour law experts have said that despite the provisions of the codes, the gig workers remain confined to the status of a ‘non-employee’, thus depriving them of job security, stable/fair wages, and heir working conditions, especially the 10-minute delivery compulsions, make their very lives constantly endangered.
Nearly 3 lakh gig workers across India were on strike and were logged off form apps from 7 AM to 12 midnight, which affected delivery service, making their New Years Eve celebrations a tad inconvenient. The Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) had given the call for strike. Their key demands included restoring the per km wage to Rs10 per km, axing the 10-minute delivery option, and payment for cancelled orders too.
According to IFAT, nearly 3 lakh gig workers across India took part in the strike, with roughly 60,000 delivery agents in Karnataka alone, most of them from Bengaluru, Mysuru and Mangaluru. Telangana had a near full participation. However, it was a partial participation in Tamil Nadu. Thousands of food packets remained undelivered in kitchens across the country. In Delhi, only about 10 per cent of the 1.5 lakh gig workers worked, and most of them were Zomato delivery agents. By late evening, IFAT state vice president Om Prakash Raghav claimed, the firms were announcing Rs150 per delivery for a 3-km distance, but last-minute the consolation prize had few takers.
What prompted them for strike action was chiefly curtailment of wages. Only three months ago, the IFAT vice president Mohammad Inayat Ali had said, delivery workers were being paid Rs 10 per km. However, Zomato reduced it to only Rs 6 per km, and then all companies have followed it.
He said that when the order is cancelled at last-minute, the delivery agent gets nothing. We demand that the same per kilometre rate must be paid to delivery workers to prevent their loss of time and transportation costs. Further, 10-minute delivery option needs to be removed permanently, since delivery agents have to rush to the destination, making them compromise with their security of life. This option by Zepto, Blinkit and Instamart is dangerous for the life of delivery workers, and many of them have met with accidents.
The gig workers were also demanding natural justice. Presently, the IDs of gig agents or workers get blocked upon customers complaints, without allowing them time to provide their version. IFAT says they had to go on strike because of the long-standing issues of pay cuts, unsafe work conditions, inhuman pressure to deliver within impossible time frames, and arbitrary policies of the delivery app companies.
It should be noted that the gig workers invest in their vehicles, fuels, and phones and many resort to loans to survive as gig workers. The delivery app workers going on strike on a festive day meant heavy income loss to them, but they went ahead with the coordinated all-India action to drive home the point. The gig workers demonstrated that they are now ready to face even punitive actions, such as blocking of their ids, showing resolve that they are bracing for a greater, longer fight to protect their dignity, rights, wages, and safety of their very lives.
Working conditions of the gig workers in India has been abysmal, to say the least, while the Centre has been very slow in offering partial relief to them. Whatever is given to them is too little, despite the government claims to be working on social security and welfare for gig workers through initiatives like registering them on the e-shram portal, extending health benefits under Ayushman Bharat, introducing clauses in the New Labour Codes to define their status and rights, and potentially mandating platform contributions for their welfare, aiming to provide life or disability cover and better working conditions. However, the all-India strike of gig workers has just exposed just how hollow the government propaganda is in reality.
According to a report of People’s Association in Grassroots Action and Movement titled “Prisoners on Wheels”, supported by the University of Pennsylvania, over 80 per cent of workers surveyed work over 10 hours a day, while over 30 per cent over 14 hours. Majority of the drivers earn below Rs15,000 a month, while the delivery workers under Rs10,000. Nearly half of them were not able to take even a single day off in a week. Over 99 per cent reported physical and mental health issues, and about half of them reported violence at work. Majority of them reported arbitrary deactivation of their Ids.
Centre has announced that the notified New Labour Codes will be implemented fully from April 1, 2026, but there is not much to hope for the gig workers of India. They are merely included in the Social Security Code 2020, but will remain non-employees. Moreover, there are as yet no enforceable standards on wages, working hours, data transparency, grievance redressal for the workers or algorithmic accountability of the platforms.
However, with the massive all-India strike on the last day of 2025, the gig and platform workers have ushered 2026 in with a bang, bringing their oft-overlooked grievances to centre-stage, forcing the delivery app companies as well as the central and state governments, to sit up and smell the coffee. Indications are that the workers protests, including those by the gig workers, will have no option but to double down and intensify in 2026. (IPA )
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