India’s Urban Company revolutionised gig work for women. Then it bled them

Multiple costs to qualify for work leads, forced product purchases, and a high rate of blockings have stripped their earnings.

Bengaluru, India — After years of working at a salon in Bengaluru, Shakeela Banu made a major life change in 2018 and joined Urban Company (UC), an app-based home services platform that has more than 52,000 workers across Indian cities, one-third of whom are women.

At first, Banu was happy with the working conditions. Her manager treated her well, she said, and she got plenty of work as a beautician on call. She estimates that she’s worked with 3,000 customers since she joined the company and has turned down many requests from those who would ask for her services privately. It was her way of staying loyal to her employers.

However, things have soured since then.

Last year, the platform rolled out new rules including that workers maintain ratings of 4.7 or higher out of 5 and accept 70 percent of the job leads, with only four cancellations allowed in a month to avoid getting blocked.

Banu was one of many UC workers whose profile was blocked due to “low” ratings.

On its blog, the company said that these measures are meant to raise the operating standards for workers and improve customer experience. (There are also plans afoot for stricter rules under which workers will need to accept at least 80 percent of the jobs and only three cancellations will be allowed.)

If workers miss these criteria, they receive a warning and need to attend either online or offline sessions to retrain in services where they have received poor ratings. If their metrics don’t improve after that, their profiles are blocked. Retraining online is free, but the workers have to pay a fee, ranging between 6,000 rupees and