Two weeks ago, Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin in the US, referenced Amazon in a tweet for making “workers urinate in water bottles”. In defence, Amazon’s Twitter account read: “If that were true, nobody would work for us.” Almost immediately, evidence emerged of overworked drivers having to urinate in bottles. The global e-commerce giant has now apologised: “We owe an apology to Representative Pocan. The tweet was incorrect. It did not contemplate our large driver population and instead wrongly focused only on our fulfilment centres. We know that drivers can and do have trouble finding restrooms because of traffic or sometimes rural routes, and this has been especially the case during COVID-19, when many public restrooms have been closed.”

Not just in America, but the Coronavirus outbreak has brought attention to serious flaws within India’s widely-celebrated gig economy, too. Nearly 90 per cent of Indian gig workers have lost income during the pandemic, according to a survey by Flourish Ventures, a global fintech venture capital fund with investments across South Asia. Gig work essentially entails working as a freelancer or on short-term contract-basis, as opposed to permanent employment.