An hour into their protest on Monday, the police asked the large group of engineering graduates protesting in Bangalore outside the HCL Corporate Office to disperse.
Later, after an hour of explaining their problems to the police, the campus recruits allegedly left in the lurch by HCL Technologies, found support and guidance from the police who summoned the HCL Human Resources representatives to “sort out” the issue. Negotiations between the recruits and the representatives will continue on Tuesday, the protesters told The Hindu .
Though the first in Bangalore, these protests are part of the second nationwide protests where over 5,000 engineering graduates, who were promised jobs during campus recruitment season late 2011, are demanding their jobs. HCL Technologies has delayed joining dates at least five times officially, and also introduced a new screening process in August 2012.
‘Police were helpful’
“The entire process was unethical. We were given letters of intent in March and they sent us some ‘service rules’ email in May. Since then, all we have heard from them are fresh promises on the joining date,” a furious computer science engineer from a leading Bangalore college said. “HCL hasn’t even bothered to have one meeting with us. The police was more helpful and facilitated this meeting with the company representatives,” he said.
Even on Monday, human resources representatives continuously offered them jobs at HCL Infrastructure, which the graduates called “unacceptable”. “We were offered software jobs for Rs. 3.25 lakh per annum. These jobs don’t require much skill and the offered salary is at least Rs. 75,000 lesser,” a protester said. They claimed that there are at least 5,000 such graduates across the country who have been “duped” by the company.
Company reacts
Responding to queries, an HCL spokesperson said that it will start communicating dates of joining in 2013, “for positions across our lines of business”. “We understand the urgency to provide confirmation to each selected student who passed out in 2012, on the planned timing to on-board them. We remain committed to have each individual with ‘letters of intent’ from HCL join us,” the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, the company invited graduates to consider job openings in HCL Infrastructure Services.
“To confirm, even if candidates do not qualify for positions in the Infrastructure Services business at this point, they would still remain eligible to receive an on-boarding date for positions in other lines of business when released around August,” the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, a top Labour Department official told The Hindu the matter had not been brought to the department’s notice. “We will definitely check on the issue and see what we can do about it,” the official said.
