As part of the ongoing struggle of the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) employees for their job security and justice, several activities are being taken up in various cities in India. A meeting was held in February by the Forum for Information Technology Employees (F.I.T.E) in Chennai to explain the current state of the struggle.
As part of the ongoing struggle of the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) employees for their job security and justice, several activities are being taken up in various cities in India. A meeting was held in February by the Forum for Information Technology Employees (F.I.T.E) in Chennai to explain the current state of the struggle. The meeting was attended by many IT employees from TCS and various other IT organizations.
Com Thamizh Nazar traced the background of the current agitation for the retrenched TCS employees. Concerned about the plight of the layoffs enmasse by TCS, “We are against TCS lay off” has been setup in the face book by the Young Tamil Nadu Movement (YTNM). This received a large number of visitors. Quite a few of the employees impacted by the unjust termination have got in touch with the Forum.
The Forum for IT Employees (FITE) was launched in Chennai on December 29, 2014 to coordinate the affected employees and also to bring together IT employees all over India. Besides Chennai, FITE chapters were formed in various cities such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, Kochi, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata wherever TCS employees were impacted. Many IT employees other than TCS also, got in touch and participated in many agitations and activities that were held in various cities such as forming a human chain, holding a seminar on the rights of IT employees.
With support from FITE, many of the unjustly sacked TCS employees have also come out to file cases demanding reinstatement on their jobs. FITE has also been demanding that the governments – center and states, immediately intervene in this ongoing issue and ensure justice for the IT employees.
Using facts and figures, activists very clearly established that it is the greedy profit motive which drives TCS and other IT organizations in sacking the experienced staff after sucking their toil and youth during the first few years. These very corporate houses shamelessly claim to work for the upliftment of the society!
Com Senthil pointed out that the key point of contention is whether the IT employees are workers and do they have rights applicable to the other working people of this country or not. At the moment, companies and the capitalists are claiming that the IT employees are not workers as defined under the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 and other labour laws of this country. It is a well known fact that the IT employees provide various services and produce the software which is sold to various organizations around the world and profits are made. However the rights of the IT employees are not recognized.
Com Parimala elaborated on the discrimination against women employees by TCS and other IT & ITES organizations. Women employees are deprived of their legal and social rights during child bearing and upbringing, as enjoyed by their counterparts in companies in other countries. In some cases, women who proceed on maternity leave are graded as ‘non-performers’ in their performance appraisal and harassed. Corporate houses such as TCS harass the women employees in order to make them leave the organization ‘voluntarily’. If the women insist on continuing their work in the organization, the management does not hesitate to push them to resign or terminate them.
IT employees also questioned the profit driven ‘appraisal system’ which is arbitrarily declaring the best performers as “low performers” to suit corporate needs. This is a very unscientific appraisal rating system, artificially imposing the so called bell curve and finding various reasons to down grade the efforts and performance of the employees. By these backward practices and attacks, these corporate houses intentionally nourish very unhealthy and cut-throat competition that engenders a culture amongst the team members of slog for 12-14 hours a day and 7 days a week!
Activists pointed to the tracking of IT employees by the Nasscom database to intimidate and black list those who fight for their rights. This illegal weapon is being used by the corporate houses to put pressure on the employees to leave the company without any resistance or get black listed in the Nasscom database which will impact them wherever they go.
Efforts taken by FITE and others have yielded good results. TCS had to break its silence and say that it is not laying-off such high number of its staff, but ‘only’ 3000 of them as a ‘regular exercise’. They also have to take back their order to lay off a women employee which was challenged by FITE in Madras High Court! It is very obvious that TCS was scared of the snowballing of their attack on women into to nation-wide agitation focusing on the rights of women.
Speakers also questioned the role of Government. Is it to allow, facilitate and support the corporate houses to make huge profits by giving them various forms of tax concessions and subsidies to exploit the working people and not even assure them of job security? All these are done in the name of Jobs and development. No, we cannot accept that elected governments act as the guardians of the corporate houses and facilitate the ruthless exploitation! Governments are duty bound to protect its citizens and ensure their livelihood and job security and well being. We must ensure this, they said.
Modi and team is promoting “Make in India”, whereas even those who are on employment are being thrown out and the government is just watching it happen as mute spectators. Nokia, Foxconn, etc. are examples for en masse closure of the organizations throwing tens of thousands on the streets without any future. TCS and other IT giants have been laying off its experienced staff on regular basis in order to boost up their profits further.
Speakers expressed their determination to fight to stop the retrenchment by TCS and other IT organisations and for the formal recognition of all the rights of IT employees and their human rights. Unity is the key to face up the challenges of the combined corporate – government attacks on the IT employees.
TCS Layoffs: Fact-Finding Committee Report
On the initiative of Forum for IT Employees (FITE), a fact finding committee was constituted comprising of a senior journalist, academician, legal expert and labour rights activists. The members of the fact-finding panel members were, Mr. BRP. Bhaskar, Senior Journalist and Human Rights Activist, Thiruvananthapuram; Dr. M.Vijayabaskar, Assistant Professor, MIDS, Chennai; Adv. Bobby Kunhu, Legal Expert, Salem; and Ms. Chandrika Radhakrishnan, Software Professional and Labour Rights Activist, Chennai.
The fact-finding Committee recorded the testimonies of many IT employees whose services have been terminated and collected surveys from a large number of employees. They also gathered evidence from senior IT employees who had deeper insight to resource management aspects of TCS. Based on these evidence and analysis, the Committee concluded that
- It is a carefully crafted and implemented strategy to reduce its mid-tier technical employees
- The performance appraisal system used to justify layoffs, is clearly unscientific and arbitrary which must be corrected. The employees must be provided reasonable opportunity to make representations against any perceived injustice in their appraisal
- Found the performance appraisal to be discriminatory against women employees who are likely to take maternity leave and unable to work long hours and late nights, a phenomenon being normalized by software industries
- The performance appraisal and subsequent retrenchment process with an absence of effective grievance mechanism is a blatant violation of the core principles of Natural Justice enshrined within the Preamble of the Constitution of India
- In view of the fears and concerns of IT employees about the NASSCOM skill registry, the state must examine the violations of privacy of IT employees
- The State, which has a responsibility with regard to employment and labour welfare, must not remain a silent spectator in face of large-scale unjust retrenchment in a major industry. We appeal to all state governments concerned to intervene quickly to safeguard the interests of TCS employees
- The State must initiate a judiciary probe into the TCS layoffs and the violations of labour and human rights in the flexible firing policy adopted by IT industries
- A permanent tribunal must be constituted for knowledge based industries including IT, ITES, BPO call centres etc which must review the exemptions provided to the IT industry from certain labour laws with a view to protecting the legitimate interests of employees in this important sector.