Exclusive: Troubles Erupt For Urban Company As Beauticians Protest ID Bans

Amidst a growing wave of gig workers speaking out against alleged unfair employment practices employed by various startups, a large group of beautician partners on Monday (June 12) gathered at the Gurugram office of Urban Company to raise the issue of purported permanent blocking of IDs by the company.

Inc42 team spoke with over a dozen partners present at the premises, who said that the company has made its partner policies stringent over time causing distress to them.

The Urban Company beautician partners have been facing the issue of frequent blocking of IDs for nearly a year now. However, the problem has accelerated over the past couple of months.

According to the protesting workers, the company has been blocking their IDs (both temporarily and permanently) due to issues such as booking cancellations, and a fall in user rating, just to name a few. 

Notably, the group of agitating partners said that earlier the company’s beautician partners had to maintain a minimum rating of 4.5 to be eligible for operating on the app. Now, they have to keep a minimum rating of 4.7, which has only added to their burdens.

“Often, clients don’t pick up our calls to avoid cancellation charges, making us the scapegoats. They then resort to filing a complaint against us, on the platform, for not reaching on time. After multiple such instances, the company applies a cancellation charge without verifying and even takes disciplinary action by blocking our IDs,” a partner said.

In a statement to Inc42, the company said that it has asked some of its partners to quit as they were unable to meet the “marketplace standards” despite multiple prior notices.

“We had recently asked a few partners who were not meeting the marketplace standards despite multiple prior notices and re-trainings, to part ways with the marketplace. We continue to maintain an open-door policy and encourage dialogue with our partners. We remain committed to building a safe, high-quality home services platform,” the company spokesperson said.

Gig Workers Face Issues Across Segments

The issue of blocked IDs is being faced by many Urban Company partners across segments, besides salon services providers, they claimed.

“The management is not giving any clear response to us. At times they are saying that our IDs will be unblocked tomorrow, sometimes they are saying it will take months. Nothing is concrete. They are not sharing anything in writing,” said one of the protesting partners.

While beauticians in the Delhi NCR region gathered at the Gurugram office to share their concerns, the partners in other cities such as Bengaluru and Kolkata also shared a similar sentiment. 

“The company is asking for the resubmission of security deposits, amounting an INR 25K to 30K to open new IDs, rather than unblocking old ones,” a Bengaluru-based Urban Company partner told Inc42.

Meanwhile, many partner beauticians are also facing issues regarding service bookings. We were told that if a partner has open slots for appointments, Urban Company’s app, at times, fails to show the availability of its partner beauticians, impacting their income. 

The protesting partners alleged that the company is promoting new beauticians on the platform. It is because of this that many old partners are unable to get repeat bookings.

Gig Worker Union Lays Out Demands 

Meanwhile, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU)-affiliated All India Gig Workers Unions (AIGWU) has also lent its support to the workers on strike. In a statement issued on Monday, AIGWU Secretary Saubhik Bhattacharya said that Urban Company was forcing the gig workers to work under exploitative practices and urged the company to listen to the demands of the workers. 

He also alleged that the consumer internet unicorn was using the wrong set of internal rules and automated systems, which is impacting the livelihood of many workers.

The AIGWU also issued a long list of demands for the Urban Company:

• Reinstatement of permanently banned user IDs 
• Permanent dissolution of the policy of permanent ID bans on the app
• Maintaining a single system of ratings (user feedback), against systems based on cancellation, response and input rate
• Decrease the minimum threshold of partner rating below the current 4.7 or 4.85
• A weekly off for the protesting workers listed on the platform as well as a sick leave provision for pregnant and menstruating women partners.

Gig Workers Protests — Not The First Time

This is not the first time that Urban Company is in the limelight for causing alleged distress to its partners. 

Back in 2021, Urban Company salon partners staged protests against the company following changes in its policies. Back then, the company had also filed a civil suit against four protesters, citing the protest as illegal.

The agitation has come at a time when the company has been facing mounting losses amid a funding drought. Urban Company’s consolidated net loss more than doubled to INR 514 Cr in the financial year 2021-22 (FY22) from INR 249.2 Cr in FY21 on the back of its soaring expenses.

Compounding problems seem to be the rising competition from new-age tech operating in altogether different areas. Last month, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal said the foodtech company was looking to enter the at-home services space via its quick commerce vertical Blinkit.

As the latest agitation pans out, many similar platforms are also under the regulatory scanner for their alleged predatory employment practices. Amid rising complaints, the labour ministry, in April, held talks with multiple new-age tech startups, including Urban Company, to provide benefits such as life insurance, personal accident and health covers to their respective gig workers.

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Update | June 15, 3:00 PM

The story has been updated to include the company’s statement.