Engineering graduates, who were promised a job and have been left in the lurch by tech major HCL Ltd., have submitted a formal complaint with the State Department of Labour in Bangalore on Monday.
Senior officials in the Labour Department confirmed that they had received the complaint, and had spoken to the industry freshers. The official added that the department will probe into the complaint and examine the case’s merits.
However, given the IT industry does not come under the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, labour officials said that they were unsure how much intervention was possible.
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In the complaint, signed by Bangalore recruits, students who passed out of a dozen colleges in the State alleged that they were duped by HCL. “After being recruited from campuses in March, we have been waiting for nearly a year for our joining dates,” one said. The complainants sought government intervention in the matter, and asked officials to monitor such issues in the industry.
“There are several such unethical practices that need to be checked. But given the IT industry is exempt from the law of the land, we have no say in the matter. This is why we were pressing for industries to draft their own standing orders. That way we will be to hold them accountable,” the official said. He said that many such cases come to the department’s notice. However, most don’t file a written complaint. “This is the first time we have got it in writing, so we will look into what we can do,” he said.