The Fairwork Ratings Bangladesh 2022 has been launched on October 17, 2022. The report portrays the working condition of the gig workers of Bangladesh working with 9 platforms - Chaldal.com, Foodpanda, Hello Task, HungryNaki, Obhai, Pathao, Sheba XYZ, Truck Lagbe, and Uber.
This year, in the second round of the report, the platforms have been assessed based on 5 principles of Fairwork - Fair Pay, Fair Condition, Fair Contracts, Fair Management and Fair Representation and based on the assessment, the highest score received by the platforms is 3 out of 10, which Sheba XYZ, HelloTask and Chaldal.com have achieved.
The report of 2022 has uncovered a new phenomenon, 'Khaep' or 'workers going solo', where many ride-sharing workers have been identified to interact with the consumers, bypassing the platform directly.
“This is an interesting phenomenon, as the workers are challenging the platform against the high commissions they are being charged for their services,” the principle investigator of the report, Dr Ananya Raihan, puts it.
The launching event took place on the same day, commencing with the welcome speech of Dr Matthew Cole, a Post-doctoral Researcher at Fairwork, where he introduced the principles of Fairwork.
After the welcome speech, Dr Ananya Raihan, Chief Imaginator, DataSense, and Raiyaan Mahbub, Researcher, Fairwork Bangladesh and DataSense, presented the report's findings.
From the perspective of Fair Pay, the report has noted two interesting things - the lack of awareness among the workers about the minimum and living wage and the non-earning hours the workers spend on the platform. Another noteworthy finding of the report was the assessment of the Fair Representation principle, where an "absence of much collective action was noted among workers across all the platforms,” as presented by Raiyaan Mahbub.
Following the report presentation, a panel discussion took place with esteemed panellists from the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS), Sheba.XYZ, and National Coordination Committee for Workers' Education (NCCWE). In the discussion, Nazma Yesmin, Director (Research & Development), BILS, acknowledged the importance of policy actions by talking about how “the workers are making our lives easy, but there is still a lot of need for improvement for the workers."
Ilmul Haque Sajib, Co-founder, Sheba.XYZ talked about how they are trying to address some pressing issues regarding unemployment through different platforms - skill development, access to resources and connection with consumers. The discussion ended with some actionable points mentioned by Razekuzzaman Ratan, Member, NCCWE - registration of workers, insurance policy for workers, the establishment of proper wage structure and the existence of sound contract-based relationship among the workers and the platforms.
The event ended with an engaging open discussion, which resulted in some insightful action points for the way forward of the research.
