Impact of Labour Codes on Migrant, Informal, Gig and Platform Workers

The contemporary transformation of Indian labour law cannot be understood without
reference to the Constitution’s social-welfare orientation, which combines
enforceable protections against exploitation with Directive Principles requiring the
State to secure humane conditions of work, social assistance, livelihood, and worker
participation.⁽¹⁾ Within that constitutional setting, the labour codes mark the most
important central reorganisation of labour legislation in recent decades. For the
purposes of vulnerable labour, the two most consequential enactments are the Code
on Social Security, 2020 and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working
Conditions Code, 2020, both of which moved into the implementation phase by late
2025, even as rule-making and administrative design continued into 2026.⁽²⁾⁽³⁾
This chapter proceeds from a simple but important proposition. India’s older labour
law architecture was built around relatively stable, bilateral, and formal employment
relationships. That architecture was always a partial fit for India’s labour market; it
is an even poorer fit for an economy marked by subcontracting, circular migration,
informality, app-mediated labour, and task-based services. The labour codes seek to
respond to this reality by widening the vocabulary of labour law: “unorganised
worker,” “gig worker,” “platform worker,” and an expanded definition of “inter-State
migrant worker” now appear in central labour legislation.⁽²⁾⁽³⁾ Yet legal recognition
does not necessarily amount to robust protection. This chapter therefore argues that
codification has undoubtedly expanded legal visibility and opened a welfare
architecture for previously marginalised workers, but it has not fully transformed
precarious workers into bearers of a complete labour-rights bundle. Much depends
on registration, scheme design, inter-governmental coordination, and administrative
capacity.