Brand Bengaluru’s one of the key elements representing the Information Technology arena, the Infosys, has been pulled up by state government’s Labour Department for its indiscriminate sacking of freshers and trainees it had hired a couple of years ago but onboarded just a few months ago.
The company terminated the services of over 300 freshers and trainees it had hired for its Mysuru campus and asked them to leave within hours. Many of them, being from different states, were shocked and aghast as they had nowhere to go at such a short notice. No amount of pleadings and arguments could help either as the company hired bouncers and security personnel to drive them out of the campus by evening of the D-Day.
This mass sacking brought huge negative media for Infosys and its founder NR Naranamurthy, who has been in the news for advocating long work hours (70 hours per week to be precise). The negative sentiments against the company refuse to go away as the IT workforce comprising youth and engineering students from across the country took to social media to vent their frustration and anger.
Besides, the moment the news broke out, the authorities and political entities stepped in with their strong condemnation of the company.
Regardless, the company has pressed on with its assessments of its trainees and another round of tests for close to 800 trainees are scheduled in another few days.
But the company has, for the moment put on hold the process, after a state Labour Department tour visited the Mysuru campus and even the Central and state governments are investigating the matter.
The state and Central governments also stepped in due to the furore the incident generated.
The state government that has its own Labour Department began breathing down on the company while the Central government nudged it to investigate the incident of mass termination at Infosys Mysuru campus.
In fact, a union of IT workers, Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), also lodged a formal complaint with the central and state governments on this asking for punitive action against the offender.
Karnataka State Labour Minister Santosh Lad had summoned company representatives for a meeting on Thursday and questioned them on the mass sackings.
The Infosys hiring team was present at the Vidhan Soudha, where they received a tongue lashing on the sacking process. The trainees, who were sacked, were given offer letters in 2022 but were onboarded only a few months earlier. The reason cited for their sacking was that they failed internal assessment tests.
The minister said that the company lacked transparency in handling layoff and performance appraisals and wondered if the process was just and fair. “IT and BT companies do not follow uniform rules for hiring employees. Each company has its own policies, which should not be the case. There should be a standardized policy, and IT companies must coordinate with the Labour Department to establish a common framework,” the minister said.
The minister also questioned the company officials on the extreme work pressure on workers. “There have been complaints of extreme work pressure on employees in the IT sector. Workers are forced to complete projects within strict deadlines, leading to constant stress. Employees are expected to be available to their companies 24/7, with no personal space. Regardless of the time, they are obligated to attend online meetings or respond to calls, causing mental stress,” the minister noted.
The minister also questioned the IT company’s practice of hiring aggressively and keeping workers on the bench and later reducing workforce when projects get over. The yearning for profits rather than people is perhaps the reason for this practice, the minister felt.
The state labour minister also highlighted the regional bias in recruitment and expressed concern that locals were given a miss. Most of the sacked persons were from outside Karnataka, the minister noted and said that this aspect must also be addressed and locals given adequate priority in recruitment.