Home services marketplace Urban Company has filed a court petition against the service partners protesting outside its office and has called the ongoing protests “illegal.”

Urban Company partners in the salon category have been protesting outside the company's Delhi NCR office since the evening of December 20, 2021. The protests are being held against the introduction of a subscription fee-based work guarantee programme called MG (minimum guarantee) plan and categorisation of workers as Flexi, Smart, and Plus.

The petition noted that a group of 50 partners from the salon category visited Urban Company’s Gurugram office on December 20, 2021, in relation to the recently implemented changes on the platform. According to the company, towards the end of the meeting around 6 pm, a group of 20 service professionals decided to stay back at the premises and started chanting slogans.

The gig economy company has asked the court for an injunction directing partners to “cease their illegal protest and immediately vacate the Urban Company’s office, main entrance and parking lot.” The company has also asked for police assistance and security in disbursing the protestors and restriction on partners from causing any kind of demonstrations, protests, riots or forming a mob etc.

Further, Urban Company asked the court to restrict protestors from circulating any messages on WhatsApp or any other social media, which may damage the reputation of the company. Businessline has reviewed the court notice sent to one of the UC partners named in the petition.

“There have been some instances of dissatisfaction and concerns shared by certain categories of partners with respect to the product prices and charges agreed by them. While we have been working tirelessly to resolve these issues amicably with the partners, a certain group of disruptive partners have decided to repeatedly derail the collaborative and co-operative process for their unknown ulterior motives and vested interests,” Urban Company said in its petition.

The company added that partners have resorted to “undertake unlawful means to destabilise its business and employed unlawful means including but not limited to threatening the employees of Urban Company as well as other partners.”

Partners’ demands

According to the protesting 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 claim that the partners categorised as Flexi, will not be given work between Monday to Friday.

In a letter addressed to 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.

comment COMMENT NOW