Cognizant Firing 13,000 Employees: IT Employees Union Term This ‘Illegal’; Calls For Tripartite Meeting
IT giant Cognizant is called upon to discuss the company’s plan to reduce headcount by All India Forum for IT Employees (FITE), a union representing staff of information technology (IT) companies.
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Why Is Cognizant Laying Off The Employees?
Following the footsteps of Infosys, Cognizant is also laying off people.
In a similar fashion, the company is moving forward to reduce some of the perceived fat, especially in the middle and top-level to flatten the organization structure.
As per the news, the company is letting go of 10% of the workforce impacting around 2,200 people in the JL6 band (job level 6), an internal job code for senior managers.
Infosys has recently laid off 30,092 employees in the JL6, JL7 and JL8 bands. (reference)
How Did This Happen?
As last week, Cognizant had said that it was planning to cut around 13,000 jobs in the company.
Earlier the Nasdaq-listed IT services firm, Cognizant said that they are planning to remove around 7,000 mid- to senior-level jobs.
They were also talking about to shut down its content moderation business, which accounts for another 6,000 jobs, as part of its ‘2020 Fit for Growth Plan’.
In response to this announcement, FITE approached the labor commissioner on Tuesday and gave a memorandum claiming that the company’s decision to be “illegal”.
What Did FITE Do?
FITE urged the commissioner to take some action and also emphasized a tripartite meeting with the company.
The forum strongly criticized the decision and claimed that Cognizant was forcing associates to resign from their jobs immediately.
On non-prevailinance, the HR department will issue termination letters over email apparently.
The memorandum said, “Cognizant was not able to find the right opportunities for the affected or impacted employees because of unrealistic internal policies, which do not follow the Industrial Employment (Standing Order) (Tamil Nadu) Amendment Act, 1960, and other standing orders of the state,”. (reference)
What Should Be Expected In The Future?
The forum informed that they would continue their fights against illegal layoff in any form.
They also aim that the state and central governments stop the alleged mass job cuts immediately.
They also requested the government to form state-level committees for IT employees with members from the labor department, company representatives and the employees’ forums like FITE in all states like in Maharashtra.
So that the IT employee’s issues can be discussed and appropriate measures could be taken to resolve them.
While talking about the job security for IT/ITeS employees, the forum mentioned that the illegal terminations, forced resignation or involuntary attrition are against the job protection given by the Indian labor laws.
According to the forum, these illegal practice needs to stop immediately.
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