This. Is. Unacceptable. All India IT & ITES Union - KA will be releasing a demand charter in consultation with Bangalore's Urban Company workers. If any journalist wants to cover this or any publication wants us and the workers we are in contact with to write for them, DM us. Spread the word.

One worker's income this month was Rs 4,729. And thats BEFORE GST + PETROL! Which thanks to certain people is not cheap! Observe: they term working as a 'Subscription' to Urban Company! And charge 'Commission'. All of which comes to more than the 6,000 we have been mentioning.

Why would any worker want to tell another person to join this toxic company especially one, and this is one of the crucial ways Urban Company abdicates itself of any responsibility and fails workers, that DOES NOT PAY A SALARY! Workers survive SOLELY on commissions earned.

UC management refused to resolve problems workers faced UNLESS they 'referred' others to join UC as 'partners'. Is this not a pyramid scheme? Aggrieved workers we spoke to were told 'Get 3 to 8 more guys to join' & only then would their grievances be heard. Is this not extortion?

An aside: workers also said that the notification system of UC is unreliable and frequently does not show them in the notification bar if they got new jobs leading to many jobs being ignored by no fault of the worker.

Some workers got jobs at 2 am in the morning! Those counted as part of their 70 quota too. Despite the fact that the job was labelled 'missed' by the time workers woke up in the morning. Is UC saying 'professionals' have to work for 24 hours? Is sleep only for the rich?

If a customer cancels a job and the worker receives no payment? The gig still counts towards the 70 a month quota. One worker got 14 jobs in a day. How is it physically possible (factoring in Bangalore's traffic, distances, the fact that humans eat, etc) to 14 gigs?

Back to Urban Company. The 6,000 a month payment workers have to make that we mentioned earlier should ensure at least 70 jobs a month. BUT UC has instead ensured maximum exploitation with minimum worker benefit for this as well.

Even if a customer does not answer a worker's confirmation call, the worker has to travel all the way to their house (whether its 1 km or 10) and click a photo proving that the customer is a no-show. Or else their account will be BLOCKED!

Their policy says it has to be 1 person per gig. When the worker called the helpline, the person at the other end exposed the company line when he said 'Then you hire someone at your own expense. Do what the customer says.' A customer's convenience comes from the worker's wallet.

Did UC protect its 'partner' in this case? NO! Their helpline for workers provides no resolutions or actual support. Another customer claimed that one person would not be enough to complete the order when a worker showed up at his job. Note: UC does NOT provide additional labour.

One worker said a customer demanded he do something not on the original order of cleaning (a frequent issue workers raised). When he refused, the customer CANCELLED WITHOUT informing the worker! An almost Rs 1,900 order gone AFTER the work he had been hired for was completed.

And now let's digress for a bit to focus on another aspect of the problem: customers. People who can afford to hire services from Urban Company can often be extremely disrespectful and/or violent. Many workers aired the caste and class based hostility they received at work.

Never mind the fact that this is the only point of entry and exit to the migrant slum the workers we spoke to live in. (Which by the way is located to a giant upscale housing society with more than adequate infrastructure for its residents.)

That's not the only time you risk being temporarily blocked for at least 2 days or more. If you cancel jobs for any reason INCLUDING it's booked at the same time as another job, or you're stuck in traffic, you're BLOCKED. If your rating goes below 4.7 / 5, you're BLOCKED!

What happens if you are sick? Or if another crisis prevents you from accepting 'gigs' (or as UC refer to jobs as: leads)? Or if you simply want to take 2 days or more off from work! YOU CAN'T. If a 'professional' takes more than 40 HOURS off, their accounts are BLOCKED!

A trick capital now uses to minimise its responsibility towards labour. Urban Company employees are not termed workers. They are 'professionals' and 'partners'. They get no health insurance except for road accidents, and even that two of the workers we spoke to were not given.

A worker informed us Urban Company provides NO EMPLOYMENT DOCUMENTS! Imagine if your workplace gave you no ID, no offer letter, no employment certificate, no payslip, pretty much no proof that you work there. One of the reasons for this is that UC has figured out something.

UC's black t-shirts and bags blasted all over their marketing costs workers almost Rs 2000. But the fact that Urban Company off-loads a massive chunk of its costs onto its 'partners' is not the only form of exploitation that regularly occurs there.