ALGORITHMIC WAGE DISCRIMINATION AND THE CODE ON WAGES, 2019: UNMASKING THE LEGISLATIVE SILENCE IN INDIA’S GIG ECONOMY

AUTHOR – BHOOMI JAIN, STUDENT AT VIVEKANANDA INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES-TECHNICAL CAMPUS, AFFILIATED TO GGSIPU, DELHI

BEST CITATION – BHOOMI JAIN, ALGORITHMIC WAGE DISCRIMINATION AND THE CODE ON WAGES, 2019: UNMASKING THE LEGISLATIVE SILENCE IN INDIA’S GIG ECONOMY, ILE LABOUR LAW REVIEW, 4 (1) OF 2025, PG. 56-63, APIS – 3920 – 0009 | ISSN – 2583-6161.

ABSTRACT

India’s gig economy, which was once touted for its flexibility and reach through the digital space, now exposes a deeper structural skew—where labour is regulated not by law, but by algorithm. Platform workers, ranging from delivery agents to service providers, enter digital marketplaces every day with no assured wage, no fixed contract, and no right to dispute the untransparent systems that compute their remunerations. This shift in wage-setting—from human negotiation to algorithmic logic—has ushered in an era of algorithmic wage discrimination, with wages determined by changing formulas on the basis of behaviour, place, and demand, without transparency or accountability.

The regulatory framework has diminished. The Code on Wages, 2020, even as it has consolidated India’s wage laws, leaves out gig workers from its protective provisions and is silent about algorithmic regulation. That exclusion is not just statutory—it is constitutional. The paper examines how such algorithmic control is a contravention of the guarantees of equality, livelihood, and autonomy under Articles 14, 19(1)(g), and 21 of the Indian Constitution. It also looks at judicial reactions and recent labour mobilisations as measures of constitutional opposition. Diluting comparative frameworks such as the EU’s AI Act and ILO’s advice, the study sets forth a rights-based approach: legislative reforms, algorithmic transparency requirements, collective bargaining rights, and an independent watchful body. In the end, the paper urges us to rethink labour law—with its confrontational equation of power and algorithm, and return of dignity to workers who toil unseen in its code.