AIOVA scrutinises Flipkart's Ekart employment practices

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Jan 1, 2019

The All India Online Vendors Association (AIOVA) reported that Flipkart’s delivery segment Ekart fired 300 seasonal workers and is scrutinising the business’ employment practices. Flipkart denies any wrongdoing.

On December 31, 2018, AIOVA alleged that Flipkart’s Ekart may have questionable employment practices.

“Employment practices of Ekart, owned by Flipkart and Walmart under scrutiny. 300 seasonal workers fired in Kheda. Lot of sellers blacked out. 100 years ago MK Gandhi started first Satyagraha from Kheda,” wrote the organisation in a Tweet.

However, Flipkart maintains that it did nothing wrong and stated that the workers were hired through local third-party vendors and were only hired to work for the festive period, as reported by Mint.

“In cases where we have to reduce our contractual employee strength (contracted by the vendor), we do offer pre-agreed-upon severance packages, which has been the case here as well,” read Flipkart’s statement.

“We are working closely with our third-party vendors to ensure that they fulfil their obligations, statutory or otherwise, with full fairness.”
 
“We continue to make deep infrastructure investments including in warehouses and fulfilment centres, and are proud to create thousands of new local jobs, contributing to the local economy,” said Flipkart about its commitment to the state of Gujarat.

AIOVA will now look into the matter further.