The Union of IT and ITES Employees (UNITE), on Wednesday, said it had submitted a memorandum to the Commissioner of Labour, Tamil Nadu, regarding the recent announcements by IT firms on reduction of workforce.
In a statement, UNITE said Indian IT majors Cognizant, Infosys and Capgemini had announced mass retrenchments in the name of “2020 fit for growth plan”, “role rationalization” and “restructuring”.
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“This act of the IT majors is against the law of the land, and is illegal. But the government of India and Tamil Nadu are indifferent to these practices,” it added. The union also alleged that despite recording high financial gains in the last quarter, the companies were retrenching its employees, which was unwarranted.
UNITE’s general secretary Alagunambi Welkin told
Last week, Cognizant, while announcing its third quarter results, said the company had made the difficult decision to remove approximately 10,000-12,000 mid-to-senior level associates worldwide, from their current roles in the coming quarters.
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The gross reduction is expected to lead to a net reduction of approximately 5,000 to 7,000 roles (about 2% of the company’s total population), as the company aims to reskill and redeploy approximately 5,000 of the total associates impacted.
Retrenchment plan
“With this, more than 3,000 employees may lose their jobs in Tamil Nadu. Infosys announced that they would be sending out 10% of its mid and senior-level employees and Capgemini has announced a similar plan to oust 500 of its Indian employees,” UNITE mentioned in its statement.
Last year, Verizon had voluntarily sent home more than 3,500 employees, including 900 in Tamil Nadu. UNITE had then intervened and filed a petition before labour authorities. “This sort of retrenchment has become a day-to-day affair of IT companies, and labour authorities are silent on this important issue,” added Mr. Welkin.