The Platform Economy in India: Bringing the State Back In
20 Oct 2023
16:00 -18:00
Open to: All
Peterhouse
Trumpington Street
Cambridge
CB2 1RD
United Kingdom
Join our Centre for Business Research seminar
Speaker: Swati Chintala, New York University
About the seminar topic
Platforms lie on the continuum between formal and informal enterprises – they are legally registered enterprises that nonetheless do not afford platform workers the kind of protection that labour laws provide a small minority of formal workers in India. This leads me to ask how the state’s policies towards platform companies and workers can be interpreted as part of a longer arc of state-capital relations in India? Do these policies represent a continuation or a break from the state’s approach towards informal workers? Through interviews and analyses of guidelines and laws related to platform workers, I find that the state’s policies towards the platform economy are a means to increasing its fiscal and regulatory reach without disturbing the balance of power between capital and labour. The state takes a three-pronged approach which leaves platform workers out. First, it supports and fosters platform companies through incentives and tax breaks. Second, it creates regulation that grants workers access to some social security provisions, but no labour rights. And third, it regulates platform companies largely on behalf of consumers, not workers.