Just a little over two weeks in lockdown due to Coronavirus scare, the All-India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) office at Delhi has been getting more than a dozen calls on job losses daily. Most of the calls are related to the Information Technology (IT) and IT-enabled companies located in Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Bangalore and Chennai.
National Council member, AICCTU, Surya Prakash, told The Hindu that in an indication of the economic impact of Coronavirus scare, he had been receiving 10-15 calls per day from people across the country, mostly the National Capital Region, regarding higher-paying white collar job losses. He said these calls were besides the large number of calls about job loss at the lower level.
“I got calls from Chennai and Noida on Friday. There was another call from a man sacked from a company in Gurugram’s Udyog Vihar. He had been working with the company for almost ten years with an annual package of ₹14 lakh,” said Mr. Prakash, adding the employees were being terminated in tens and hundreds. He said that State units of the AICCTU had also been receiving similar calls.
Saying that it could just be a tip of the iceberg, Mr. Prakash, an advocate, said that in most of the cases the employees were being forced to tender resignations with the threat of poor remarks in their relieving letters making it difficult for them to seek job outside. In many cases, the retrenched employees chose not to report the retrenchment since they did not have much faith in the system
He said he had taken up the cases of retrenchment and sometimes the orders were revoked. Mr. Prakash, however, said that the redressal mechanism was far more responsive in Delhi compared with the neighbouring Haryana. “We have got better response from the authorities in Delhi than Gurugram when approached them for redressal,” he added.
He said that complaints were also received about non-payment of dues during the lockdown despite the Home Ministry directions to all employers, be it the industry, shops or commercial establishments, to make due payments without deductions for the lockdown period. He said the Deputy Commissioners and the Police were also authorised to take action in this regard.
Mr. Prakash expressed apprehension that the large scale job loss could lead to spike in crime post-lockdown and the situation could be grim. He said the corporates had grown due to the hard work put in by their employees and now it was time to share profits with them.
