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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | ‘We’re being pushed into poverty’: Voices of women who took on the unicorn start-up Urban Company -Karishma Mehrotra

‘We’re being pushed into poverty’: Voices of women who took on the unicorn start-up Urban Company -Karishma Mehrotra

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published Published on Jan 13, 2022   modified Modified on Jan 14, 2022

-Scroll.in

Frustrated by rules they see as onerous, a bunch of beauticians are speaking up – and sometimes being heard.

Nidhi Chander* was full of hope until five years ago. That was when she gave up her job as a beautician at a unisex salon in Pitampura, Delhi, where she was earning Rs 20,000 a month, to work with Urban Clap. She believed the home services start-up would give her the freedoms she had been missing all along: flexible work hours, precious time to look after her children, and independence.

At first, things were great. Although she had to travel a fair distance every day, she could work when she wanted to. Her monthly earnings were almost Rs 55,000. She learned she could earn more than her husband, who had lost his job and was driving her around. She bought an air-conditioner, a refrigerator, and even took a loan for an apartment in Ghaziabad.

But then, the rosy picture began to fade. As the company, rechristened Urban Company, expanded globally, inching closer to unicorn status, cascading pressures began to mount on her. There were commission rates to deal with, penalties for cancellations and ratings pressures. Chander’s average net income dropped to Rs 20,000 a month. The family rented out their house and moved to cheaper accommodation. Unable to afford the fees, the children were pulled out of school. Her daughter contracted typhoid, and the family had to scramble for treatment.

In October, she says, she considered killing herself. “I had hit a low,” she said. “The monthly instalments were torturing me. The pressure made me sick.”

Other beauticians with Urban Company rushed to help – a moment which Chander believes crystallised their anger into what was possibly India’s first women-led gig workers’ strike. In October, roughly 100 women agitated outside the start-up’s office in Gurgaon to protest “low wages, high commissions and poor safety conditions”.

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Scroll.in, 13 January, 2022, https://scroll.in/magazine/1014700/were-being-pushed-into-poverty-voices-of-women-who-took-on-the-unicorn-start-up-urban-company


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