The recent death of a beauty worker with Urban Company (UC)has raised questions about the practices at aggregator platforms – the promise of flexibility and freedom comes bundled with exploitative and coercive work conditions

Chandrika Goud, 32, was a home-based beauty provider who had worked with UC for five years and was a GIPSWU campaigner who spoke up against her employer’s “exploitative practices, including unfair labour conditions and illegal surveillance”.  She was associated with GIPSWU and Telangana Gig & Platform Workers Union, both affiliated with the Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers (IFAT). She passed away earlier this month after “enduring years of relentless harassment, intimidation, and abuse” due to UC’s punitive actions, alleged the union in a press release. 

Like many other workers who agitated, her ID was blocked; work stopped and threats from the company mounted, as per the union. Activists and those close to her allege that the constant mental and physical stress was a factor in her taking ill. She was hospitalised and subsequently died,

BehanBox reached out to Urban Company for a comment on the allegations surrounding Chandrika’s death, its work culture and the redressal mechanisms available to women. This story will be updated when they respond.

The women working in beauty, spa, and home-based services with the platform company  have been agitating for three years now for minimum wages, a fair redressal system for their grievances, and the right to be recognised as employees of the platforms. They want an end to a service rating system that they maintain is loaded in favour of customers and leaves workers in a state of constant precarity and fearful of their safety. Their other demands include putting a stop to the surveillance system, and punitive company measures against criticism.