Hyderabad: TGPWU on Monday, March 23, has urged the government to include the Right to Minimum Wages in the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Draft Bill.
In a statement addressed to the Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and Labour Minister G Vivek Venkat Swamy, and the Telangana Department of Labour, the union said the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, is the most significant law concerning workers in India, which has been “enforced and reinforced in multiple ways” by both central and state governments and the Supreme Court.
Citing several Supreme Court judgments, the TGPWU emphasised the critical importance of paying minimum wages. The top court made it clear that non-payment of minimum wages violates fundamental rights of the Indian Constitution.
“No industry or employer has the right to exist if they cannot pay minimum wages. In other words, minimum wages has become a constitutional right,” said the statement written by Shaik Salauddin, President of Telangana Gig Workers and Platform Union.
Every single payment must meet norms, TGPWU
Currently, the Draft Bill introduced in 2025 has no provisions specifying a minimum wage, nor does it clarify the need for one.
According to the statement, gig work is mentioned and adequately covered under the Minimum Wages Act, which calculates the payment of minimum wages on a time-rate basis, a piece-rate basis, or a guaranteed time-rate.
Most gig or platform work is piece-rate work, a method of paying workers for each “unit” produced or action performed. And the Minimum Wages Act mandates that such a task cannot fall below piece-rate norms, which are payments made as per the task carried out.
“The Minimum Wages Act mandates that every single payment must meet that (piece-rate norms) minimum floor, regardless of the number of transactions/gigs.”
Since there already is an “unavoidable mandate” as per the Constitution, the Court, the Minimum Wages Act, and the provisions of the Gig Workers Law, the union appealed for the “explicit mention: in the draft bill.
“An explicit mention in the law will only make for a more rational and well-functioning legislation that also takes care of the rights of gig-workers, for one of their greatest concerns – wages – while meeting the mandate of the Indian Constitution,” the statement read.
The Founder-President suggested that, taking the provisions mentioned above into account, “all gig workers who come under the Schedule of the Minimum Wages Act shall be paid no less than the rates determined in the appropriate Schedule, for every transaction.”
