The reputation of any company is based not just on how much profit it brings in or how well it treats its customers, but also how its working conditions are.
The happiness and satisfaction of employees and the kind of perks they get to enjoy all work as factors of showing how good of a company it might be. That is why news of protests and strikes work towards hampering that reputation since it lets people know that the employees themselves are not happy with the management.
Something similar happened when over a 100 female employees of home services aggregator Urban Company decided to stage a protest outside its office in Gurugram.
They cited reasons like low wages, inadequate working conditions, high commissions, unsafe environments and more as reasons for the protest.
What Was The Protest About?
Around a 100 women working for Urban Company, an on-demand home services provider, protested outside their office in Gurugram on Friday, 8th October 2021.
This included beauticians, salon experts, spa attendants, and more who claimed that the company was increasing the commission charged to them to around 30 percent, had “unfair trade practises”. There were even questions raised about late-night shifts, according to reports.
Urban Company, which recently attained the tag of being a Unicorn company, has somewhere around 35,000 people working for it.
Entrackr spoke to some people at the protest site and one woman said that “Subha 7 se raat k 9-10 baj jaate hain, ghar pe bache ko taala laga k aaye hain (we leave for work at 7 in the morning, we have to sometimes lock out kid at home).”
Another as per their reports said, “Is it safe for a woman to be going to someone’s house that late in the night?”
Apparently along with these concerns about lack of insurance from the company, working at night and also purchasing the beauty products from the company instead of outside retailers were raised. The products as per the employees is at a higher price as compared to the market.
Allegations were also raised that if the women did less than 30 jobs in a month then they were charged around Rs. 2,000 and they were also warned against doing the protest.
Read More: With New Unicorns And IPOs By Startups, Is India Actually Earning?
Urban Company’s Response
Soon after news came out of the protest, Urban Company vehemently refused any and all allegations. In a statement they said, “Urban Company partners earn a net average Rs 280-300 per hour, net of commissions, fee and all associated product and travel costs. The top quartile of service partners earn more than Rs 36,000 per month net of all commissions, fees, travel and product costs.”
“All Urban Company service partners have access to life and accidental insurance cover…several partners also enjoy free health insurance through the platform,” they added in response to concerns about employee insurance.
The company further said that “During the pandemic, we approved Rs 100 million worth of interest-free loans for all our beauty partners in locked-down regions. Our estimates suggest that in the offline world, service professionals earn on average between Rs 12,000-15,000 per month.”
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: Business Insider, Livemint, TOI
Find the blogger: @chirali_08
This post is tagged under: Urban Company, Urban Company protest, Urban Company women workers protest, Urban Company beauticians, Urban Company beauticians protest, Urban Company low wage protest, Urban Company working conditions, Fairwork India Ratings 2020 Report
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