Gig work
UNDERSTANDING GIG WORK IN INDIA’S NEW LABOUR FRAMEWORK
Introduction
The word “gig” has come a long way from the jazz clubs of 1920s America.
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the use of “gig” as a slang term for a job is “originally in the argot of jazz musicians, attested from 1915 but said to have been in use c. 1905.” A more widespread popular account, cited across music journalism, traces it as a shortening of the word “engagement” which was coined by jazz musicians in the 1920s to describe a paying performance booking. By 2009, the compound “gig economy” had entered the written record, and by the 2020s, it had entered the statute books of both India and the European Union.
This article explains what the law now says about gig workers: who they are, what the term means in a legal context, what changed for them with India’s new Labour Codes, and how that compares to the approach taken by the European Union.
What Does “Gig” Mean?
The Word Itself
Before turning to law, it helps to understand the word. Gig, in its labour-market context means a short-term, task-based, or freelance job, one that does not involve the traditional trappings of employment: no appointment letter, no fixed salary, no employer-mandated benefits, and no permanent attachment to a single organisation.
As Wiktionary documents, the contemporary extended meaning of "gig" is “any job, especially one that is freelance or temporary, or done on an on-demand basis.” NPR's linguist Geoffrey Nunberg, writing in 2016, described the evolution precisely: “In recent decades, 'gig' has become just a hip term for any temporary job or stint, with the implication you're not particularly invested in it.” That tone of detachment, he argued, is what made “the gig economy” the dominant name for the platform-driven labour market of our era.
A Background of the Gig Economy
According to NITI Aayog's 2022 report "India's Booming Gig and Platform Economy", "the gig workforce in India is likely to cross 23.5 million workers by 2029-30." Industry reporting suggests that as of 2025, India already has more than 12 million people delivering food, driving ride-hailing cabs, sorting e-commerce packages, and performing other on-demand services for digital platforms.
The sector, as TechCrunch noted following the implementation of the Labour Codes in November 2025, “has become a critical source of employment, especially for young and migrant workers shut out of formal job markets.”
Policy Recognition: NITI Aayog's Early Case for Platformisation
The Indian government's own policy thinking on the gig economy predates the Labour Codes. In June 2022, NITI Aayog released a landmark report titled India's Booming Gig and Platform Economy: Perspectives and Recommendations on the Future of Work, the first study of its kind by an Indian government body to systematically estimate the size and potential of the sector. The report estimated that the gig workforce stood at 7.7 million workers in 2020–21 and projected growth to 23.5 million workers by 2029–30, accounting for 4.1 percent of the total workforce. It noted that gig work was expanding across skill levels: approximately 47 percent of gig jobs were medium-skilled, 31 percent low-skilled, and 22 percent high-skilled.
Significantly, NITI Aayog framed platformization not merely as a labour challenge but as an employment opportunity. The report highlighted India's persistent problem of job elasticity, the principle that economic growth should translate into proportionate job creation, a linkage that has not held in India for some time. In that context, the think tank recommended a "Platform India initiative" modeled on the Startup India programme, arguing that platform-based work could serve as a catalyst for occupational mobility, especially for workers excluded from formal job markets. The report also recommended extending social security measures to gig workers and their families, covering sick leave, insurance, and pensions, recommendations that informed the framework eventually notified under the Code on Social Security, 2020.
[Source: NITI Aayog, "India's Booming Gig and Platform Economy: Perspectives and Recommendations on the Future of Work," June 2022, niti.gov.in; PIB Press Release, "Gig Workers in the Country," November 2024, pib.gov.in]
The Statutory Definition of a Gig Worker
Which Code Defines It?
Of the four new Labour Codes enacted by Parliament, the Code on Wages, 2019; the Industrial Relations Code, 2020; the Code on Social Security, 2020; and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 only one provides a definition of the term "gig worker".
That is the Code on Social Security, 2020. As confirmed by the Ministry of Labour and Employment's press release on implementation (November 2025), "Gig work, platform work and aggregators have been defined for the first time" under this framework. The remaining three codes do not extend their definitions to gig workers.
The Exact Statutory Definition
Section 2(35) of the Code on Social Security, 2020 (Act No. 36 of 2020), as reproduced verbatim from India Code (the official statutory repository), states:
"gig worker" means a person who performs work or participates in a work arrangement and earns from such activities outside of traditional employer-employee relationship.
[Source: Section 2(35), The Code on Social Security, 2020, India Code, indiacode.nic.in]
Understanding the Definition: What It Says and What It Does Not
Legal commentary from the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) makes an important analytical point: Chapter 1, Section 2(26) of the same Code separately defines an “employee” as “a person employed on wages by an establishment, either directly or through a contractor to do any skilled, semi-skilled, unskilled or any other work.” Gig workers, under Section 2(35), fall outside this definition entirely. They are not employees in the conventional legal sense.
Corroborating this, the Bar and Bench legal journal notes: “the code does not identify gig workers and platform workers as either labourers or employees.”
The PRS Legislative Research summary of the Code illustrates this with a practical example: “Consider the example of a driver working for an app-based taxi aggregator. Here, there is no employee-employer relationship. For example, appointment letters are not issued, social security benefits are absent, work hours are not regulated by the employer, and the driver may choose to work for a competitor taxi aggregator. Therefore, the nature of the work involved may lie outside the purview of a 'traditional employer-employee relationship', making him a 'gig worker'.”
The Related Definitions: Platform Worker and Aggregator
The Code also defines two complementing concepts that form the ecosystem around gig work. Section 2(61) defines a “platform worker” as “a person engaged in or undertaking platform work” where platform work is work done through an online platform connecting individuals and organisations in exchange for payment. Section 2(6) defines an “aggregator” as a digital intermediary or marketplace that connects workers with consumers.
As EPW notes, the two categories overlap but are not identical: “All platform workers are likely to be gig workers since platform workers are paid on task basis, whereas all gig workers may not be platform workers. Companies may hire gig workers through short-term contracts who are not sourced through digital platforms.”
Who Is a Gig Worker?
Drawing from the statutory text and its authoritative commentaries, a gig worker under Indian law is someone who:
• Performs work or participates in a work arrangement
• Earns from that activity
• Does so outside a traditional employer-employee relationship which means no formal employment contract, no appointment letter, no fixed wages from a single employer, and no mandated benefits from that employer
• Is not an “employee” or a “workman” as those terms are defined in other labour laws
In practice, this covers food delivery riders (Swiggy, Zomato), ride-hailing drivers (Ola, Uber), home services workers (Urban Company), freelance content creators working through platforms, and a wide range of task-based digital economy participants. As Corrodalegal notes: “Whether they're labelled partners, service providers, or freelancers is irrelevant. If the platform connects a customer to a worker through a digital interface, it likely falls within the legal framework now recognised under the Code.”
It is worth noting what this definition does not include: agricultural workers, traditional contract workers under the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, and workers in a formal employment relationship. The Standing Committee on Labour, as documented by PRS, had recommended making the definition of “gig worker” more specific to avoid misinterpretation, though this recommendation was not fully incorporated into the final 2020 Code.
Before and After the Labour Codes: What Changed for Gig Workers
The Situation Before November 21, 2025
Before the Labour Codes came into effect, gig workers in India existed in a legal vacuum. The Nyaaya legal explainer (an initiative of the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy) described the pre-Code position plainly: "Gig work, being a relatively new form of workforce engagement, still remains untested in Indian Courts, and with the absence of specific legislations, gig workers cannot claim consequential benefits such as minimum wages, hours of work, overtime, leave, etc."
Three specific laws illustrate this gap:
The Minimum Wages Act, 1948: Provided all employees basic working conditions and minimum wages. Gig workers, lacking employee status, did not enjoy these rights.
The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970: Required businesses to provide basic health and welfare services to workers. Gig workers did not fall under the definition of a "contractor" under this Act and were therefore excluded.
The Employees' Provident Fund & Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 / ESIC: Employer-employee contributions to provident fund and state insurance. As the Bharatnama newsletter summarised: "most social security benefits are tied to formal employment... Gig workers get none of these contributions since legally they are not 'employees' of the platforms that dispatch their work."
The consequences were stark. According to reporting cited in Bharatnama, "an estimated 77% of platform workers have no access to any formal social security scheme."
What Changed: The Key Provisions After November 2025
The Code on Social Security, 2020 introduced several concrete changes. The Government of India's PIB press release and the Ministry of Labour's implementation note confirm the following:
Legal Recognition for the First Time
The most fundamental change is definitional. As the staffingindustry.com summary of the Ministry's press release confirms: "Gig work, platform work and aggregators have been defined for the first time." This shifts gig workers from legal invisibility to legal recognition not as employees, but as a formally acknowledged category with statutory entitlements.
A Mandatory Social Security Fund
Under Sections 113 and 114 of the Code, a Social Security Fund for gig and platform workers is to be established. The PIB press release states: "For the first time in the country, social security benefits have been extended to unorganised, gig and platform workers."
Aggregator Contribution Obligations
Aggregators are now legally required to contribute to this fund. The contribution is pegged at 1–2% of annual turnover, capped at 5% of the total amount paid to gig and platform workers. This is not optional. As key4comply's legal compliance analysis notes: "Aggregators must calculate and deposit turnover-based contributions." This is a structural shift: previously, platforms bore no statutory financial obligation towards worker welfare.
Benefits Under the Fund
The schemes to be notified under the fund cover: accident and disability insurance, life insurance, health and maternity benefits, and old age protection. As the PIB press release states, workers "are now eligible for government-notified programmes such as accident and disability cover, maternity benefits, health protection."
Portability Through e-Shram
Each gig worker receives an Aadhaar-linked Unique Identification Number through the e-Shram portal. The PIB release notes, "benefits will continue uninterrupted as long as their Aadhaar-linked e-Shram registration remains active." This is significant because gig workers often move across multiple platforms as portability ensures continuity.
Grievance Redressal
The Code provides for the creation of toll-free helplines, call centres, and facilitation centres to address worker grievances which is a mechanism that did not exist before for this category of workers.
What Did Not Change: Remaining Gaps
It is equally important, for accuracy, to note what the Codes did not change for gig workers:
The Code on Wages, 2019 applies only to "employees." Gig workers remain excluded. As TechCrunch reported following implementation, the Social Security Code "is the only part of the new framework that addresses gig and platform workers, as the remaining three codes covering wages, industrial relations, and workplace safety do not extend minimum earnings, employment protections, or working-condition guarantees to this rapidly expanding workforce."
The Oxford Human Rights Hub analysis (OHRH, 2026) notes that "the regulation of everyday working conditions, including reasonable working hours, mandatory health checks, and preventive safety standards fall under the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, from which the gig workers are excluded."
OHRH further notes, "the exclusion of gig workers from the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 denies them collective bargaining rights."
As Live Law observed: "What the Code gave gig workers was a legislative mention, not a legislative shield. Life and disability cover, health and maternity benefits, old age protection, all remain undelivered." Contribution rates and specific schemes were still being notified as of early 2026.
State-Level Legislation in India: The Concurrent List Question
While the Code on Social Security, 2020 operates at the central level, labour is a subject on the Concurrent List of the Constitution of India, meaning both Parliament and state legislatures have the competence to legislate on it. Several states have moved ahead of the central scheme notification with their own gig worker laws, raising substantive questions about the relationship between state legislation and the central framework.
Rajasthan enacted the first state-level law on gig workers in India, the Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023. It introduced a registration mechanism and a welfare board for platform-based gig workers and is widely recognised as the legislative template that subsequent state acts have drawn upon.
Karnataka enacted the Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act, 2025, which came into force with effect from 30 May 2025 and was formally notified on 12 September 2025. The Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Rules, 2025 were subsequently notified on 19 November 2025. Under this framework, a "gig worker" is defined as an individual who performs work based on contractually agreed payment terms through a digital platform. The Act establishes the Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers Welfare Board, with representation from aggregators, gig workers, and civil society, and imposes a welfare fee on aggregators. It also regulates minimum standards around transparency, safety, grievance redressal, and automated workforce management — going beyond the social security focus of the central Code. Legal analysis by Lexology (Khaitan & Co.) notes that the Karnataka Act "significantly expands the definition of an 'aggregator' beyond that specified in the SS Code and the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988."
Bihar followed with the Bihar Gig and Platform Based Workers (Registration, Social Security and Welfare) Act, 2025, making it the third state to enact such legislation.
This proliferation of state laws raises an important federal question. Section 113 and 114 of the Code on Social Security, 2020 vest the authority to notify social security schemes for gig and platform workers exclusively in the central government. When states collect welfare cess from aggregators, as Karnataka does, but no corresponding state-level benefit scheme has yet been operationalised, the collected funds risk lying unused. This concern echoes a structural problem documented in the Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) regime, under which an estimated ₹40,000 crore in cess lay unspent across various state governments during the COVID-19 pandemic because the administrative infrastructure for individual worker identification and benefit delivery had not been built.
A further complication arises from the employment classification question. The Karnataka Act, unlike the central Code, does not explicitly exclude the possibility of an employer-employee relationship between an aggregator and a gig worker. This legislative choice was deliberate and was influenced, in part, by judicial proceedings in Karnataka. In a case before a single bench of the Karnataka High Court concerning a POSH (Prevention of Sexual Harassment) complaint involving an Ola driver, the court held that the driver could be considered an employee of the aggregator for the purposes of that legislation. That decision, which has been contested and remains under discussion, provided one of the reasons why Karnataka's legislature was careful not to categorically exclude the employment relationship in the text of its own Act. Legal commentary by PRS Legislative Research notes that the contractual obligations often placed by gig platforms on workers, restrictions on working for competitors, requirements to maintain ratings sit in tension with the features that would normally characterise genuine independence.
The net result is a tiered federal landscape in which the central Code provides definitional recognition and a social security framework; state Acts provide supplementary welfare mechanisms with varying definitions; and the courts in multiple jurisdictions have not yet converged on how to characterise the underlying relationship. How this legal plurality is reconciled; whether through central scheme notification, constitutional challenge, or judicial interpretation will be a defining question for Indian gig worker law in the years ahead.
[Sources: Rajasthan Platform Based Gig Workers (Registration and Welfare) Act, 2023; Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act, 2025 (Gazette notification, 12 September 2025); Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Rules, 2025 (19 November 2025); Lexology / Khaitan & Co., "Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act 2025," November 28, 2025; DLA Piper GENIE, "Karnataka's new platform-based gig worker protection," 2025; Lexology, "Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers Act, 2025: What Aggregators in Karnataka Must Know," September 23, 2025; PRS Legislative Research, "The Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Bill, 2025," prsindia.org; Taxguru.in, "Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act 2025," December 4, 2025]
The ILO and the Push for Global Standards
While India and the European Union represent the two most developed regulatory responses to gig work, the broader international picture is being shaped by a process underway at the International Labour Organization (ILO), — a process that has direct implications for how India's own framework will be assessed and potentially challenged.
The ILO is a tripartite body founded in 1919 and one of the oldest specialised agencies of the United Nations system. India has been a member since its founding. The ILO's principal standard-setting mechanism is the International Labour Conference (ILC), held annually in Geneva, which brings together government, employer, and worker delegates from its 187 member states. Conventions adopted by the ILC are submitted to member states for ratification; once ratified, they are binding under domestic law. Even unratified conventions carry persuasive authority, and some international decisions have held that member states may be bound by the norms reflected in conventions even absent formal ratification.
The question of whether to develop international standards specifically for platform and gig work has been on the ILO's agenda since at least 2021, when the Governing Body agreed to place the issue on the conference agenda. The process involved an ILO expert group discussion (which concluded without agreement, primarily owing to employer opposition), followed by a Governing Body decision to schedule a "double discussion procedure" a across the 113th (2025) and 114th (2026) sessions of the ILC.
At the 113th ILC, held in Geneva from 3 to 14 June 2025, the standard-setting discussions on "Decent Work in the Platform Economy" took place for the first time. On 13 June 2025, the Conference reached a key decision: a majority of member states and all workers' delegates agreed to develop a binding Convention supplemented by a non-binding Recommendation on decent work in the platform economy. The resolution was opposed by employer delegates and the government delegates of certain countries, including India, the United States, and Switzerland, who raised concerns about the regulatory scope and economic implications of a binding instrument. At the end of the two-week session, the Conference had agreed on the form of the proposed standards and reached agreement on key definitions and scope provisions, but only approximately 15 percent of the proposed text had been negotiated in full. In August 2025, the ILO published a draft Convention and draft Recommendation for comment by member states, with a deadline of 14 November 2025.
The 114th ILC, scheduled from 1 to 12 June 2026 in Geneva, will hold the second and final discussion, at the conclusion of which the draft Convention and Recommendation will be put to a vote. Under the ILO Constitution, adoption requires a two-thirds majority. If adopted, the resulting Convention would represent the first binding international labour standard specifically governing platform work globally, covering an estimated 150 million platform workers worldwide according to ILO estimates.
The implications for India are material. If the ILO adopts a Convention whose definition of "platform worker" or "gig worker" differs from the definition in Section 2(35) of the Code on Social Security, 2020 or whose substantive protections extend to areas such as wages, working conditions, or collective bargaining rights that India's Code does not address, India will face a choice of whether to ratify the Convention. If it does, ratification would require bringing domestic law into conformity. If it does not, India's position at international forums will be complicated by the gap between its claim to be a first mover on gig worker recognition and the structural limitations of the protections its framework actually provides.
This tension was already visible at the 113th ILC, where India's government delegation took a cautious position on the proposed convention at the same time as trade unions representing Indian platform workers were preparing for the 2026 negotiations. In November 2025, the ILO's Bureau for Workers' Activities organised a two-day workshop in Hyderabad at which Central Trade Unions across India agreed to form a National Joint Forum for Platform Workers, specifically to coordinate their advocacy position ahead of the 2026 ILC.
The ILO process is, therefore, not a distant development. As this article is published, the final negotiations on the Convention are either imminent or already underway.
[Sources: ILO, "Media Accreditation for the 114th International Labour Conference," ilo.org (ILC 114th session dates confirmed as 1–12 June 2026); ILO, "Decent Work in the Platform Economy" (draft Convention and Recommendation texts), ILC114-V(3), August 2025, ilo.org; ILO, "Agenda of the 114th Session of the International Labour Conference," ilo.org; International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), "2025 International Labour Conference: Major Advances for Workers' Rights at the ILO," June 16, 2025, ituc-csi.org; Human Rights Watch, "ILO Commits to International Standards on Gig Work," June 13, 2025, hrw.org; World Employment Confederation, "International Labour Conference 2025: Progress Made on Platform Work Regulation," June 20, 2025, wecglobal.org; British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL), "2025 International Labour Conference: First Steps Towards International Standards for Platform Work," biicl.org; ILO, "Towards a Collective Voice for Platform Workers," December 17, 2025, ilo.org (on the National Joint Forum for Platform Workers workshop, Hyderabad, November 2025); Eurofound, "ILO Commits to International Standards on Platform Work," apps.eurofound.europa.eu]
Comparative Analysis: The European Union's Approach
The EU Platform Work Directive (2024/2831)
The European Union addressed the gig economy question through Directive (EU) 2024/2831 on improving working conditions in platform work, adopted by the European Parliament in April 2024 and formally by the Council in October 2024. The Directive entered into force on December 1, 2024. EU Member States have until December 2, 2026, to transpose it into national legislation.
The Directive covers an estimated 28.3 million platform workers across the EU, a figure the European Parliament projects to reach 43 million by 2025. Between 2016 and 2020, platform economy revenues grew from €3 billion to approximately €14 billion which is almost fivefold.
The Core Mechanism: Presumption of Employment
The foundational logic of the EU Directive is fundamentally different from India's. Where India created a new category for gig workers (separate from employees), the EU Directive starts from the premise that many gig workers are already employees in practice and that platforms have misclassified them.
As the European Parliament press release on the Directive states: "The new law introduces a presumption of an employment relationship (as opposed to self-employment) that is triggered when facts indicating control and direction are present." This is described as a rebuttable presumption: platforms can contest it in court, but the burden of proof lies with the platform, not the worker. The Council of the EU confirmed: "If the digital platform wants to rebut this presumption, it must prove that the contractual relationship in question is not an employment relationship."
The practical consequence is that if a platform controls key aspects of the work such as pay, schedules, or conduct, the workers are considered employees unless the company can prove otherwise. Reclassified workers gain access to minimum wages, paid leave, collective bargaining rights, and social security.
Algorithmic Transparency and Data Rights
The EU Directive also regulated, for the first time at a pan-European level, the use of algorithms in managing platform workers. The European Parliament press release notes: "A person performing platform work cannot be fired or dismissed based on a decision taken by an algorithm or an automated decision-making system." Platforms must ensure human oversight on consequential decisions and provide written explanations to affected workers.
The Directive also prohibits processing of certain categories of personal data, including data on workers' emotional or psychological states, private conversations, data collected when workers are not performing platform work, and data used to infer racial origin, political opinions, or religious beliefs.
Definition of Platform Work Under the Directive
The EU Directive defines "platform work" as "any activity organised through a digital labour platform and performed by an individual within the EU for third parties, regardless of the contractual relationship or how the parties label it." This is notably broader and more substance-over-form oriented than India's approach: what matters is how work is actually performed, not what the contract says it is.
A Side-by-Side Comparison
On the fundamental legal question, whether gig workers are a separate category or misclassified employees, India and the EU take opposite starting positions. India's Code on Social Security creates a distinct third category of "gig worker" that is neither employee nor contractor. The EU Directive presumes platform workers are employees unless the platform proves otherwise.
On social security: India mandates aggregator contributions to a welfare fund (1–2% of turnover). The EU, upon reclassification, grants workers access to the full national social security architecture which is provident-fund equivalents, unemployment benefits, pensions. The EU approach is more expansive but also more contested by platforms.
On wages: India's Labour Codes do not extend minimum wage protections to gig workers. In the EU, reclassified workers are entitled to minimum wages under national law.
On algorithmic management: The EU Directive explicitly regulates AI-driven management decisions and bans dismissal-by-algorithm. India's Code is silent on this.
On collective bargaining: India's Industrial Relations Code does not extend trade union or bargaining rights to gig workers. The EU Directive, through reclassification to employee status, would extend existing collective bargaining rights.
On burden of proof: Under India's framework, gig workers bear the burden of establishing their entitlements and registering themselves. Under the EU Directive, the platform bears the burden of proving the worker is not an employee.
As Live Law's legal analysis observed directly: "The UK Supreme Court's judgment in Uber BV v Aslam [2021] UKSC 5 held Uber drivers to be 'workers,' a third category between employee and independent contractor, entitled to minimum wage and holiday pay... India's Code, by contrast, creates the category of 'gig worker' without attaching to it anything like the substantive protections that the UK 'worker' category carries." The same analytical point applies when comparing India to the EU Directive.
Limitations of the EU Approach
For balance, it should be noted that the EU Directive has also been critiqued. The academic analysis published in the Wolters Kluwer Global Workplace Law & Policy blog notes that the final text of the Directive weakened the presumption significantly compared to the European Commission's original 2021 proposal: "the EU-wide legal presumption of employment for platform workers... has been replaced by the obligation of Member States to establish a national presumption of employment that corresponds to their national concepts of employment." Each member state defines its own criteria, which means protections may vary across the bloc. Social Europe noted that the final text was "a realistic and concrete compromise" but fell short of what worker advocates had sought.
International Judicial Precedents on Worker Classification
The main question of law at the heart of the India-EU comparison, i.e., whether platform workers are employees, independent contractors, or a third category entirely, has also been contested before courts in multiple jurisdictions, producing a body of comparative jurisprudence that is directly relevant to any analysis of the term "gig worker."
The most widely cited decision is Uber BV v Aslam [2021] UKSC 5, in which the United Kingdom Supreme Court unanimously held that Uber drivers were "workers" under UK employment law, a third category between "employee" and "independent contractor," and were accordingly entitled to minimum wage guarantees and paid holiday. The court rejected Uber's argument that it was merely a technology intermediary connecting drivers to passengers. As the court noted, Uber set the fare, dictated the contractual terms, and exercised significant control over how the work was performed; the label the company placed on the relationship was not determinative. Reclassified as "workers," the drivers gained access to the National Minimum Wage, working time protections, and holiday pay, though notably not the full suite of rights available to "employees," such as unfair dismissal protections. The Uber v Aslam judgment is significant for comparative analysis because the UK "worker" category is conceptually similar to, though substantively more protective than, India's category of "gig worker" created by the Code on Social Security, 2020.
In the United States, the most prominent legislative episode has been California's Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), signed into law in September 2019 and effective from January 2020. AB5 codified the "ABC test" from the California Supreme Court's 2018 Dynamex decision, under which a worker is presumed to be an employee unless the hiring entity can demonstrate all three of the following: (A) the worker is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity; (B) the worker performs work outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business; and (C) the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade or occupation. The practical effect was to require gig platforms such as Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash to reclassify their drivers as employees entitled to minimum wage, overtime, and benefits. The platforms responded by backing Proposition 22, a ballot initiative placed before California voters in November 2020. Proposition 22 was approved with 59 percent of the vote, creating a statutory exemption for app-based rideshare and delivery companies, allowing them to continue classifying drivers as independent contractors while providing a limited set of alternative benefits including a wage floor and accident insurance. Legal challenges to Proposition 22 on constitutional grounds reached the California Supreme Court, which upheld the measure in July 2024 in Castellanos et al. v. State of California. As of that ruling, AB5 applies to gig drivers in California, but Proposition 22 carves out app-based transportation and delivery companies from its requirements. The California episode illustrates the intensity of political and legal contestation that worker reclassification generates in practice.
Taken together, these decisions underscore that the classification question India resolved through a new statutory category, the "gig worker" under Section 2(35) of the Code on Social Security, 2020 remains unresolved and actively litigated in jurisdictions that do not offer such a framework. As Live Law observed, the UK "worker" category carries substantive protections that India's "gig worker" category does not; the statutory recognition India provides is definitional rather than protective in the employment-law sense.
[Sources: Uber BV v Aslam [2021] UKSC 5 (UK Supreme Court); California Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), 2019; Proposition 22, California Business and Professions Code Section 7451; Castellanos et al. v. State of California, California Supreme Court, July 25, 2024 (reported in Epstein Becker Green, wagehourblog.com); Live Law, "Logged In, Left Out: How Code on Social Security, 2020 Only Mentions About India's Gig Workers," 2026]
Conclusion
The central insight that emerges from this review is this: India and the EU have answered the same underlying question with fundamentally different legal philosophies.
India has said: these workers are a new category, they deserve social protection, and platforms must fund it. The EU has said many of these workers are employees being misclassified, and platforms must prove otherwise.
Both approaches represent significant progress from a baseline of zero protection, which, as documented above, was the position of gig workers in India until November 2025, and the position in much of the EU before the Directive. Both approaches also leave gaps and face implementation challenges.
What is clear from the legal sources reviewed here is that the Code on Social Security, 2020 marks India's first statutory recognition of gig workers which not only defines them, but also gives them a legal identity, and establishing a framework for social protection. What remains to be seen, as scholars and legal practitioners have noted, is whether that framework will translate into tangible, on-the-ground protection for the millions of delivery riders, drivers, and platform workers who constitute India's booming gig economy.
Key Sources Referenced
1. India Code (indiacode.nic.in) — Code on Social Security, 2020, Act No. 36 of 2020, Section 2(35)
2. Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India — Press Release on implementation of Labour Codes (November 21, 2025), PIB
3. Ministry of Labour and Employment, PIB Press Release — "Code on Social Security, 2020: Towards Universal and Inclusive Social Protection" (November 22, 2025)
4. Ministry of Labour and Employment, PIB Press Release — "Labour Reforms: Formalising and Safeguarding India's Gig & Platform Workforce" (December 9, 2025)
5. PRS Legislative Research — "The Code on Social Security, 2020" (prsindia.org)
6. Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) — "How does the law define the gig worker?" (March 2024)
7. Live Law — "Logged In, Left Out: How Code On Social Security, 2020 Only Mentions About India's Gig Workers" (2026)
8. Oxford Human Rights Hub (OHRH) — "Between recognition and protection: gig workers and the incomplete promise of India's labour reforms" (March 2026)
9. Nyaaya / Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy — "The Law for Gig-Workers in India" (nyaaya.org)
10. Bharatnama — "#19: Why 77% of India's Gig Workers Still Have No Social Security?" (July 2025)
11. TechCrunch — "India's gig workers win legal status, but access to social security remains elusive" (November 2025)
12. Bar and Bench — "Regulatory Framework and the Protection of Basic Rights of Gig Workers"
13. Corrodalegal.com — "Gig Workers Under Social Security Code: Employer Obligations, Benefits & Legal Framework in India" (January 2026)
14. key4comply.com — "Gig & Platform Workers under the Code on Social Security, 2020" (February 2026)
15. European Parliament — Platform Work Directive adoption press release (April 2024), europarl.europa.eu
16. Council of the EU — "EU rules on platform work," consilium.europa.eu
17. Directive (EU) 2024/2831 of the European Parliament and of the Council — October 23, 2024
18. Ogletree Deakins — "Its Official: The EU Platform Work Directive Is Here" (December 2025)
19. CMS.law — "Directive (EU) 2024/2831: Transforming Platform Work in EU" (March 2026)
20. Wolters Kluwer Global Workplace Law & Policy — "Implementing the Presumption of Employment of the Platform Work Directive" (April 2025)
21. Social Europe — "Gig workers in Europe: the new platform of rights"
22. Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline.com) — Entry: "gig"
23. Wiktionary — Entry: "gig"
24. NPR / Geoffrey Nunberg — "Goodbye Jobs, Hello Gigs" (2016)
25. NITI Aayog — "India's Booming Gig and Platform Economy" (2022), as cited in legal literature