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If You Have an Enemy, Then Buy Them a Car: Gig Workers vs. Multinational Corporations in India

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Ramesh Prasad remembers the large advertisements that Uber and Ola had pasted on the back of buses and large billboards around the city of Kolkata, India. The year was 2015, and Prasad was the personal driver of a family based in Kalighat. He was used to seeing adverts that were too good to be true, promising working-class people like him a better life and more money. “But this particular advertisement said that by driving my own car, I could earn Rs 1 lakh ($1223 USD) every month! And I could set my own times too,” says Prasad. (One lakh is a numerical unit in India equivalent to 100,000.) At the time, he was earning Rs 20,000 ($245 USD) per month, and the Indian per capita income was estimated to be Rs 93,293 ($1141 USD). Prasad took out a car loan and bought a car for Rs 8 lakhs ($9782 USD), left his previous job, and started driving for Uber. What he liked most about his new job was the freedom it seemed to offer. He could switch on the Uber delivery app when he wanted to take orde

If You Have an Enemy, Then Buy Them a Car: Gig Workers vs. Multinational Corporations in India Agnee Ghosh The Tamil version of this piece is available here. Translation by Jayachandran Masilamani. The initial promise Ramesh Prasad remembers the large advertisements that Uber and Ola had pasted on the back of buses and large billboards around the city of Kolkata, India. The year was 2015, and Prasad was the personal driver of a family based in Kalighat. He was used to seeing adverts that were too good to be true, promising working-class people like him a better life and more money. “But this p

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