Urban Company rejects women workers allegation, says their earning is fair

 Urban Company denied allegations leveled by its women beautician partners of providing very low commission to them and claimed that the earnings are far more

Home service marketplace Urban Company on Sunday denied allegations leveled by its women beautician partners of providing very low commission to them and claimed that the earnings are far more than the amount claimed by them.

Over hundreds of working women have protested outside the office of the unicorn start-up in Gurugram alleging abysmally low wages given to them and companies dealing with them in a non-transparent manner.

A beautician partner of the company shared a screenshot that she got Rs 67 as payout after providing a service worth Rs 1,626.

"One of the tweets recently claimed that a beauty partner made Rs 67 for 4 orders. This is a misrepresentation of facts. The screenshot shown is not that of her earnings page but a settlement ledger of the bank transfer," Urban Company said in a blog post.

It said that the partner accepted cash payments for 2 orders and online payments for the remaining two.

"Her net earnings after UC commissions and other fees for the 4 orders in question delivered between 13 Oct was Rs 1,941," UC said.

UC provided a calculation on the cost of service that it offers to users and wage paid to partners from that work.

Paytm founder managing director Vijay Shekhar Sharma tweeted in support of the clarification provided by the UC around complex cost structure involved in offering low cost services.

UC said that it has always been a platform where both customers and partners are equal stakeholders.

"The very genesis of Urban Company was to organize the home services industry for both customers and partners. In the absence of organized players, the market was controlled by middle-men and aggregators, who restricted market access and kept a lion's share of the margins.

"However, we believe we have made the industry more transparent, reduced the number of middlemen and given a voice to the hitherto voiceless informal labour," the blog post said.