The nation-wide flash strike by app-based workers on December 31, 2025, followed by the withdrawal of 10-minute delivery promise by Blinkit in the second week of January 2026 have had huge impact on the labour market as it challenges the prevailing mystification of employment relations in gig and platform work space. Further, these developments brought back concerns about the occupational safety and the power of collective bargaining in gig economy in the limelight and made it a matter of debate in public domain.In the Blinkit reversal of 10-minute delivery norm, it is proven that sustained pressure from the workers’ side yield results. It was not only Blinkit which had such a norm in place, but other delivery companies such as Big Basket, Zepto, Zomato, Swiggy were also doing it and using it as part of their branding. In the process, workers’ life were at stake and working conditions became increasingly precarious.There were reports of accidents causing physical injury and even fatal accidents in the last few years. Also, in the entire process, basic traffic rules are violated in the form of over-speeding and the use of mobile on the go. Delivery platforms are competing with each other and using delivery time as a branding tool and in the process making lives of delivery workers precarious.Now, under pressure from the workers’ side and following government intervention, this withdrawal of the 10 minute delivery promise has significant impact on employment relations as well as occupational health safety and working conditions in gig and platform work space. It further establishes the time-tested principles of benefit of workers’ mobilisation as a class and the reclaiming of collective bargaining mechanism to a certain extent. Even when employment relation is denied in gig and platform workplace in India, collective sustained workers’ resistance can bring desired result in certain cases.Earlier, on December 31, 2025, a nationwide flash strike was held by the labour union namely the Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers (IFAT), which called for fairer wages and stronger government regulation and protection for all gig workers in the country. Forty Thousand delivery gig and platform workers participated in the flash strike. Strikes took place in major Indian cities – Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru – where app-based delivery drivers demanded a ban on marketing claims promising ten-minute delivery for all orders within a three-kilometre radius.According to the striking workers, such assurances create unrealistic customer expectations in cities known for chronic traffic congestion and often result in unfairly negative ratings for drivers when deliveries are delayed. It further ignores occupational safety health and working conditions provisions outlined in labour legislations.The legal position of the gig and platform workers is complicated and exclusionary in India. The number of workers joining gig and platform workspace is on the rise over the last one decade and as per NITI Aayog projections, it stands to increase to 20 million by 2030. In the four new labour codes that is introduced in recent times, gig and platform workers found mention only in Social Security Code (SSC) 2020. In SSC 2020, gig and platform workers are perceived as a part of the unorganised workers and social security likes Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) , Employees’ State Insurance (ESI), gratuity, maternity benefit are not applicable for such workers. The Code says that the Union government would formulate social security schemes for platform workers and that would be financed from the cess collected from the aggregators, another name for platform companies.The institutional labour rights protection, under the labour law framework, crucially depends on the existence of employment relation. Gig and platform workers find no mention in Industrial Relations Code 2020 which regulates employment relation. Platform companies are referred as ‘aggregator’ and workers are seen as independent workers or self-employed. In such a eco-system, there is no guarantee of minimum wage, working hours, collective bargaining, occupational safety, institutional social security like EPF, ESI Etc.‘Aggregators’ of all kinds have repeatedly insisted that they are mere providers of the app and not the employer as defined in labour law ecosystem. These ‘aggregators’ called those who are delivering or driving cabs, as ‘partners’ or independent workers. The logic that is often put by the ‘aggregators’ is that workers or ‘delivery partners’ are free to use the App to get work as they wish. Logging in is a choice that workers make and they are free to chose time to log in and log out.If this is position of the ‘aggregators’ about the employment relation in gig economy, then why are they agitated and perturbed about December 31 ‘strike’ by platform workers? The crucial question is if employment relation is denied, can the actions by the workers be called ‘strike’? If ‘delivery partners’ or self-employed workers are free to chose their log-ins, how can the December 31 incident be called a ‘strike’? It’s then a simple case of ‘delivery partners’ in large numbers choosing not to log in one fine morning.The fact that this is referred as ‘strike’ itself brings out the implicit employer-employee relation in gig economy. Both ‘aggregators’ and lawmakers in the government expressed apprehension about the December 31 strike by platform workers and some of them wondered how this can be allowed to happen as certain deliveries involve public utility services.But they forget that while defining employment relations, they preferred to remain as just app-providing ‘aggregators’ but when it comes to so called ‘delivery partners’ not logging in, it is widely termed as ‘strike’. This clearly shows the inconsistency in logic and double standards that prevail among aggregators and policy-makers. The trade union, IFAT, used this ‘strike’ as the last option available to them.The December 31 strike and following withdrawal of the 10-minute promise by Blinkit clearly points out the efficacy of workers’ mobilisation in ensuring labour rights in the context of misclassification of employment relation in gig and platform economy. India has been evidently passing through a livelihood crisis and a huge reserve army of labour force look for meaningful livelihood opportunities on a daily basis. Aggregators use this opportunity to run their business based on precarious working conditions and the government may boost about employment creation in the process. However, at the end, it is human lives that matter.Kingshuk Sarkar is a Professor of Economics at the Goa Institute of Management.