The onset of gig platforms is not yet a decade old in Bangladesh, however the country has seen a significant growth of the platform economy. While men are usually working on ride booking and delivery platforms, women are more likely to be seen on platforms that provide domestic work, beauty services and care work.
In Bangladesh, 85.1% of the workforce are part of the informal economy according to the 2016-2017 Labour Force Survey. Contribution of the informal sector to the GDP is around 64%1, of which gig economy is fast growing a part.
The country has seen a rapid expansion of both global and home-grown digital platforms such as Uber, Pathao and Sheba, to name a few early entrants. According to a study2 by Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), the ride-sharing business is estimated at $60 million with 6 million rides per month. The ride-sharing market in Dhaka, the capital city, has an estimated size of around BDT 22 billion per year.
The COVID-19 pandemic left a large part of the workforce without jobs. Due to acute financial precarity, labourers moved to online platforms. Consequently, the number of gig workers in Bangladesh speedily grew while the platform economy expanded by 27%. In 2021, Bangladesh’s gig workforce grew to around 300,000 location-based gig workers, while around 500,000 cloud workers made the country the second-largest online outsourcing destination3. As per the Bangladesh Employers Federation (BEF), digital platform companies recruited around 30,000 new workers during the pandemic in response to increased demand for online services.
The gig market in Bangladesh, as is evident globally, is diversifying, with some of the platforms converting to super apps, and some offering new category of services. Today platforms are wooing customers with a plethora of services. There are home based services such as beauty care, domestic help, baby care, cleaning and repair, pest control and mobility services including ride booking, food & grocery delivery, courier, truck rental and shifting.
Platform business companies have benefitted from the country’s rapid growth in internet connectivity and supporting infrastructures, as the government steers forth with a strong focused agenda of building a ‘Smart Bangladesh’, a flagship initiative to transform the country into a technologically advanced state. Digital entrepreneurs are further boosted by the country’s extremely successful mobile financial services, which has found an unprecedented wide userbase given the deep penetration of mobile phones. Platforms can easily manage payment with workers and customers through mobiles, ridding them from the cumbersome cash-based process.
However, workers on these platforms experience low wages, poor conditions, and a lack of social security and occupational safety. Fairwork Bangladesh Report 20224 highlights that many of the concerns around pay, working conditions, work contracts, management, and worker representation are widespread. The majority of these workers in Bangladesh’s informal economy do not have access to a safety net, as most platforms do not provide sick leave, insurance, or coverage for loss of income. Platform are opaque on contract terms, and worker termination is sometimes done through an automated system without any consultation. As Fairwork, in partnership with the Bangladesh team at DataSense at iSocial, is assessing workers’ condition for the third year on row, it becomes apparent how crucial it is to take stock and evaluate how the workers in the platform economy are being treated. The 2023 Fairwork Bangladesh report is due in July this year and it will present a clearer picture from this year.
As it stands today, Bangladesh has no regulatory framework on the labour standards of platform workers. Contracts with workers are unilaterally determined by the platforms, with exclusivity clauses around wage and safety, deactivation of accounts, dispute resolution and data usage. Task assignments, time to respond, time to complete, rate of pay, and delivery route can all be automatically assigned through algorithm of the platform’s software, which the workers are bound to accept. Platforms tend to be asset light with little investment in staff, infrastructure like physical stores. On the other hand, workers are required to bring in their own equipment and shoulder the cost of maintenance of such. Platforms charge considerable commissions from worker, which can change as and whenever, as they are not controlled by any regulations. As Bangladesh has no national minimum wage policies, platforms have no legal obligation to ensure a wage floor.
One of the prime reasons that compromises workers’ rights to fair treatment is their misclassification as “Independent workers”. Various platforms like Foodpanda, Uber, Sheba, HelloTask operating in Bangladesh, use different terms such as partner, individual freelance rider, independent service provider, etc. that give an impression that they are self-employed and thus platforms have no obligation towards them. They are, more often than not, regarded as parties running their own business who enjoy flexibility and freedom to work on their own terms.
The immediate questions that come up in this context are who determines their terms of work, who draws unilateral contracts with workers that set their wage, work condition? If workers are not an equal bargaining party, how are they independent partners?
If workers are not an equal bargaining party, how are they independent partners?
These lead us to the very need of a policy framework for platform workers in Bangladesh. There is acute absence of political will, mainstream awareness and inadequate advocacy effort towards developing a regulatory frame today.
A robust policy framework would mandate necessary protection for workers, a clear definition of platform workers, resulting in a regulatory body with associated institutional structure. It is in interest of all stakeholders to work towards a sustainable and fair ecosystem that would ensure continuous growth of the platform economy in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has ratified 33 ILO Conventions including seven fundamental conventions as laid out in the ILO Declaration, to comply with international labour standards. The Labour Act formulated in 2006 was amended in 2013 and in 2018 to include better access to freedom of association (forming trade unions etc.), occupational health, safety conditions, and address women worker’s harassment at work. This is backed by the National Labour Policy 2012 and Labour Act implementation Rules 2015. The Minimum Wages Board has set minimum wages for 44 different types of work including garment workers. However, platform workers are not in the purview of these legal provisions, leaving them in a desperate situation with zero legal protection.
Women workers in Bangladesh are increasingly participating in platform economy, with majority of them employed in domestic work, beauty and childcare services. The amended Labour Law 2013 recognised domestic work as a profession, though domestic workers would not get certain facilities and benefits that workers in the formal sector are entitled to. The Domestic Worker Protection and Welfare Policy was put in place in 2015, which acknowledged that domestic workers are primarily women, who face violence and discrimination, and thus require protection. However, this policy has not made much progress in terms of its implementation. Women platform workers are neither covered by the platform’s contract against any risk or abuse at work, nor are they protected by law.
HelloTask, one of the early movers in Bangladesh’s home-grown platform space, offers domestic work service to their well-to-do urban customers. Their onboarding training manual for women domestic workers, with complete apathy, absolves the platform from all responsibilities of ensuring safety of women workers:
“If you face any problem at the home of the service taker, i.e., customer, then if the problem is created by the customer, the responsibility is his/hers. If you create the problem, it is your sole responsibility. HelloTask will not bear any responsibility in this regard.”
The current state of things immediately postulates a need for a policy pathway for Bangladesh’s platform economy.
Bangladesh has a recent instance of laying down a strong legal framework for overseas labour migration. There are laws and policies in place to protect Bangladeshi labour migrants who work abroad primarily as informal workers. The Overseas Employment and Migrants Act 2013, Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Policy 2016 and other associated legal instruments aim to establish a safe and fair system of migration. One of the primary objectives of this is to ensure rights and welfare of migrant workers and their families. A strong legal frame has led to establishing necessary institutional structure that regulates private recruitment agencies and implement legal provisions on the ground. The government needs to take prompt steps to develop a similar framework for platform workers that sets a system of fair pay, decent work condition, and protection of their rights.
Figure 2 Source: ILO Flagship Report 2021
As platform economy grows globally, dialogues are going on between platforms, governments, workers and their representatives to ensure that platforms become a powerful driver for fair competition and decent work for all. Powerful discourse, judicial action and worker’s resistance are instrumental are playing active discourse in the policy space of platform economy globally. Solutions in forms of new policies, regulations and labour law amendments are evolving around the world. New employment standards are getting set to define the relationship between platforms and workers.
A regulatory framework for platform economy is essential for Bangladesh that would ensure worker’s basic rights, gender rights including fair pay, decent work condition, social protection, and other benefits. It must assure non-discrimination, fair termination, bilateral dispute resolution and fair representation of platform workers.
Reclassification of platform workers from self-employed or independent contractors to employees/workers is imperative to formalise platform work. The existing Labour Act must recognise platform workers as ‘employees’ which would mandate platforms to draw bilateral clear contracts and provide all standard employee benefits. Inclusion of platform workers in the Labour Act, Rules and Policies will allow workers to form unions that have the necessary bargaining power to fulfil their rights.
Researchers, activists, development partners, civil society actors can play the role of advocates to define new employment standards, new regulations, and amendments to existing labour laws for platform workers.
Bangladesh Is in Utter Need of a Policy Framework for a Growing Platform Economy
Author: Shamarukh Alam
Researcher, Fairwork Bangladesh Ratings 2023
Former Senior Research Fellow, DataSense at iSocial
