Urban Company partners in the beauty category are protesting outside the company's Delhi NCR office against the introduction of a subscription fee-based work guarantee program called MG (minimum guarantee) plan and categorization of workers as Flexi, Smart, and Plus.

According to the beauty workers, Urban Company's MG plan requires prime workers to pay a monthly subscription fee of ₹3,000 and ₹2,000 for classic workers, to get guaranteed work on UC. Further, the company is said to be launching a new category system by January 2022 under which the partners who do not participate in the MG plan or have a low "response rate" will be categorised as Flexi. Protesting gig workers claimed that the partners categorised as Flexi, will not be given work between Monday to Friday.

In a letter addressed to the Urban Company CEO Abhiraj Singh Bahl, representative of Urban company partners Delhi unit, Sneha Sinha said, "We strongly protest the 'work for fees' policy, which has been presented under the disguise of minimum guarantee plan."

She added that three proposed categories (Flexi, Smart, and Plus ) should be removed, as one category is enough.

Further, the gig workers also claimed that Urban Company has asked high-performing partners to offer customers discounts in the range of 10 per cent of their earnings. Partners have said that discounts are an incentive provided by a company to the customers and the burden of providing these discounts should not be passed onto the gig workers.

Urban Company declined to offer comments on the ongoing protests.

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