be-kind-to-delivery-boys-theirs-is-a-tough-struggle

Millions of gig workers across the country, despite being part and parcel of our daily life, enjoy no protection, no job security and no financial benefits. Despite the online companies they work for, generating revenues worth billions of rupees, their plight is worse. They barely manage to subsist on what they are paid, which is not even the peanuts. 

 

Sunny, one of the milk delivery boys today, suffered an epileptic attack at around 6.30 am in the morning. He was lucky to have stopped his two-wheeler and got inside the housing society building in Gurdev Nagar, Ludhiana. Had he not, it might well have ended up in something worse.

 

The society gateman did not have any clue as to what happened to him. He just rushed for help. Nobody could make out what had happened to him. Given the worst times we are living in, somebody suggested that the boy might have had an overdose of drugs! That is how we have come to judge everyone. Even the person saying so was not wrong as the incidents of drug overdose are too rampant and too frequent.

 

As the society members were trying to revive him, he suffered another epileptic attack and everything was clear that there was no overdose of anything. His colleagues later said, Sunny was a teetotaler and non-smoker and has never ever touched drugs.

 

Sunny must be in his mid or late twenties. He starts his day at around 4 in the morning like thousands of other gig-workers who deliver milk and other things at our doorsteps before we get out of our beds in this cold winter with temperature at 7 degree C.

 

Sunny’s colleagues said that he was working as a “part-timer”. Even this job was not regular for him. He has a family at home to feed. Imagine their trauma when the family members, his parents and his wife learn that Sunny had fallen on the road with an epileptic attack.

 

The company officials were reluctant to take him to any private hospital lest it cost them too much. When the doctor diagnosed that it was an epileptic attack and the treatment was not very costly they were relaxed. At the same time, Sunny was advised that he must not in any case drive a two-wheeler.

 

One of the workers who was tending to Sunny said he was lucky on multiple counts. First he did not fall on the road and met with an accident. Second, even if he had fallen on the road, not many people would have picked him up for help, as most people on the road are indifferent and unconcerned. And even if some people are concerned and want to help, they get apprehensive.

 

Because, most of the criminals who loot and rob people on the road pose as victims of accidents and the moment someone gets to help them, they pounce at them, before looting and robbing them and at times causing physical harm also.

 

Everyone prayed for Sunny that he gets into his normal life routine. Imagine what will happen to him and his family when he cannot drive a two-wheeler! His world will come down crashing. With such limited job resources, how difficult it will be for him and his family to survive.

 

The online services and home deliveries are the best thing to happen. Unlike the widely held misconception that these snatch business from the local next-door vendors or shopkeepers, the online services have created a lot of jobs for the youth.

 

We all come across almost every day one or the other delivery boys with parcels and packets. And the morning milk or newspaper delivery boys have been there much before the online services boom.

 

Not many people would understand the tough struggle these boys face. Like starting their day early in the cold morning, driving at highest risk on the foggy roads with zero-visibility and being on time at your doorsteps. And everyone knows how most of us react, if by chance the delivery boy gets late.

 

Next time a delivery boy rings your doorbell try to see your own son in him. Not that most people don’t do. Many people treat them well, but a lot many are unconcerned and indifferent and a few even maltreat them.

 

Again there is a flipside to it. We don’t know the boys who come to deliver things. We don’t know what sort of people they are. That is the right and genuine apprehension. And there have been some incidents where some delivery boys have resorted to crime also.

 

But those are only exceptions. Most of the delivery boys are like our own children. They work hard under toughest conditions. One can always see online food delivery boys driving at extreme speeds at the risk of their lives, because they have to meet the deadlines, which are very narrow.

 

These are some of the very limited observations. The gig workers, who not only include the delivery boys, but other workers in the unorganized sector, may be facing many more problems and difficult situations, which only they can experience and explain. But there is hardly anyone to tell their story which is certainly full of tough struggle. And despite all odds, they do not have any job security. If something goes wrong with them, they are literally left on the road to their own fate.

 

Individuals can only be courteous, cooperative and supportive of them. That is the maximum people can do. At the same time, they need institutional support and protection against adversities.

 

There must be mandatory health, life and disability insurance and the onus must be on the company/individual hiring them. It must be part of their package.

 

There must be millions of gig workers like Sunny working across the country. In stark contrast to the mammoth revenue generated by the online companies, right from the Amazon to Blinkit, these delivery boys are not paid peanuts even.

 

They do not have any voice. Trade unionism, which mostly ended in blackmail, has died its own and well deserved death. But that does not mean there should not be welfare measures for workers, particularly those in the unorganized sector.

 

Despite being part and parcel of our life, they don’t seem to belong to anyone.