Person of interest: Shaik Salauddin’s dreams for gig economy workers

The Uber driver is at the forefront of creating a new, tech-savvy model for a workers’ unions

When I called him, Shaik Salauddin said it would be impossible to meet before Monday. One publication recently described the Hyderabad-based union leader as ‘the most powerful Uber driver in India’. He’s certainly at the forefront of creating a new, tech-savvy model for workers’ unions, so I imagined he would be busy even as I explained that I was only in town for the weekend.

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Turns out it was his 18-month-old daughter Zainab Begum’s Hakika, a traditional feast held to celebrate the birth of a child. Since Salauddin lives in a joint family, Zainab’s celebration was a combined one with her one-year-old twin cousins. His home was overflowing with visitors but he made time to meet at his one-room office above a butcher’s shop, with middle daughter Taniya Begum in tow.

When the billboard-sized dreams of those who signed up to be Ola and Uber drivers began cracking in 2014, Salauddin became the go-to person for gig workers. Someone asked him to help gather the disparate groups that were protesting, somewhat ineffectively, against unfair practices. By then, he said, the ride share companies had started blocking the IDs of drivers who were speaking up against them. According to a 2022 NITI Aayog report, the number of Indian gig workers is expected to rise to 23.5 million by 2029-30, from 7.7 million now.

Salauddin had never worked as an Uber driver, but he had some experience running a union for hired vehicles in the State. He began working with the ride share companies to scope out the extent of the problem and continues to drive for Ola and Uber. “I never had any desire to be a leader,” the 38-year-old told me when we met at the office of the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union, which he founded in 2021 after India included gig workers in a social security law in 2020.

He also runs another pan-Indian union, the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers, whose 40,000 or so members include gig workers from startups such as Swiggy, Zomato, Amazon, Porter, Urban Company, Big Basket, Shadowfax, Zepto and Instawork.

In addition to fighting for fair pay, more transparency and better working conditions, workers must also deal with customers who don’t tip; building societies that don’t allow them to use lifts; and their safety issues. Yes, drivers are robbed, sometimes at gunpoint. An Uber driver was recently stabbed in her neck with a broken beer bottle; another driver was robbed, then chased for not chanting ‘Jai Shree Ram’; and a 23-year-old Swiggy agent died after he fell from the third floor when a customer’s pet German Shepherd lunged at him.