India abstains from ILO vote on landmark global gig work convention

Published: July 30, 2026 01:15 am IST

By: Rejimon Kuttappan

Convention No. 193 Extends a Floor of Rights to Platform Workers Regardless of Classification

The 114th International Labour Conference concluded on June 12, 2026, with the adoption of the first international labour standard aimed at improving working conditions for millions of people who earn their living through digital labour platforms. Photo: ilo.org

On June 12, in Geneva, the International Labour Conference adopted Convention No. 193, ‘Decent Work in the Platform Economy’, the first binding international treaty written for the rider, driver, picker, and data-labeller who earns a living through an app. The vote was lopsided:

• 406 in favour (including nations such as China, Brazil, Germany, France, South Africa, and Japan)
• 8 against
• 36 abstentions

India abstained. Under the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) tripartite system, each country votes through three delegates. Only India’s government abstained; its employer and worker delegates voted in favour.

Abstention is not neutrality. It is a decision to maintain distance from a treaty that millions of workers waited two years to win.

What India Walked Away From

Convention No. 193 does what India’s own laws refuse to do. It extends a floor of rights to platform workers regardless of classification, even if a company calls them “employees” or “independent partners.” Core protections apply to all, including:

• Pay as per the statutory or negotiated minimum
• On-time payment
• Occupational safety and health
• Social security on terms no less favourable than what comparable workers receive

The Convention also enters territory no global standard has touched — algorithmic management, the opaque software that allocates work, sets pay, monitors performance, and silently deactivates accounts. Platforms must now:

• Disclose significant automated decisions
• Explain them in writing
• Keep a human in the loop

Further, Article 9 of the Convention strikes at the gig economy’s central fiction: governments must classify workers correctly, guided “mainly by the facts relating to the performance of work” and by what the worker does.

It is no utopian document. It is a floor for workers’ rights that India’s gig workers currently do not stand on.

India’s Gig Workforce: Scale and Reality

India’s gig workforce stood at roughly 7.7 million in 2020–21. By NITI Aayog’s own projection, it will reach 2.35 crore (23.5 million) by 2029–30, about 6.7% of the non-agricultural workforce. This is no longer the urban side-hustle of marketing decks. Gig work is now becoming the mode through which India’s cities are fed, moved, and supplied.

NITI Aayog data further shows:

• 39% of gig workers earn ₹10,000–₹25,000 a month
• 34% earn ₹25,000–₹40,000 a month
• Wages are stretched across 12-hour shifts
• Fuel is paid for by the worker themselves
• No overtime — because overtime requires an employer to exist
• Only about 15% have any social security

The rest ride into Indian traffic each morning with no accident cover, no sick pay, no pension, and an algorithm that can switch off their income without explanation.

India’s Domestic Framework: A Promise Printed and Shelved

The government’s defenders will say that India needs no Geneva treaty because it has its own framework. The Code on Social Security, 2020, part of the four Labour Codes brought into force in November 2025, was among the world’s first central laws to define “gig worker” and “platform worker.” It directs aggregators to pay 1%–2% of their annual turnover, capped at 5% of worker payouts, into a social security fund.

While on paper this sounds like leadership, in practice it is a promise printed and shelved:

• Neither the central law nor most State laws specify the nature, quantum, or eligibility of benefits
• The contribution mechanism remains largely un-operationalised
• The schemes are notional

Meanwhile, the real laws have come from the States:

• Rajasthan’s Platform-Based Gig Workers Act of 2023
• Welfare boards drafted in Karnataka and Telangana

The Centre abstains in Geneva while its own States legislate.