- The development comes after over 100 female beauticians protested outside
Urban Company ’s office over the weekend, October 8 to October 10. - Urban Company has decided to reduce the commission cap to 25% from the previous 35%.
- Urban Company’s co-founder Varun Khaitan assured that they have learnt several lessons from other companies and plan to scale their business sustainably, without eating into the earnings of these partners.
For starters, Urban Company has decided to reduce the commission cap to 25% from the previous 35%. Now Urban Company can charge a commission between 8.5% to 25% depending on the service. The company has also marginally increased the cost of high demand service to offer higher payment for customers.
It has also decided to remove all temporary blocks on service professionals. The company noted that several service professionals were algorithmically blocked for a wide range of reasons from working on the platform for a short interval of time.
This move will reduce overall blocks by 80% and ensure that no partner loses out on available time on the platform.
The development comes after over 100 female beauticians protested outside Urban Company’s office over the weekend, October 8 to October 10. They demanded a better pay scale, working conditions and insurance at Urban Company.
You can read Urban Company’s previous detailed statement here.
Only ten months ago, the Fairwork India Ratings 2020 Report — which judges several digital companies like Flipkart, Uber, Ola, Zomato and Swiggy based on their treatment of gig workers — rated Urban Company with a score of 8 on 10. This rating was based on several factors including fair pay, conditions, contract, management, representations and more.
In a previous conversation with Business Insider, Urban Company’s co-founder Varun Khaitan assured that they have learnt several lessons from other companies and plan to scale their business sustainably, without eating into the earnings of these partners.
“The Fairwork report highlights that our working model is sustainable,” Khaitan added. Urban Company — valued at $2.1 billion — has over 40,000 service professionals on its platform and plans to add another 15,000 to meet growing demand.
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