#Coronavirus: This Mumbai BPO Forcing Employees To Come To Office; Threaten Salary Cuts If They Don’t

It was only yesterday that the Prime Minister of India announced that the entire country will be on lockdown for 14 days, till April 21. This includes shutting down of private organizations. Despite the announcement of the lockdown and all the private organizations being shut down, employees of call centres and knowledge processing units are complaining about being forced to come to work.

Employees From BPOs And Call Centres Complain About Being Forced To Come To Work

Employees from call centres and knowledge processing units have complained that they have been forced to come and work despite the lockdown being implemented. They have stated that the organizations are taking disadvantage of the government’s permission to allow “essential services” to run. 

This has been reported from the employees of Teleperformance Pvt Ltd., which is a BPO operating in ITelenet building in Mindspace, Malad. 

Anuj Mhatre, a Shiv Sena supporter has tweeted that this BPO has been one of the few BPOs still operational full time. They have been forcing their employees to come and work for them saying that their services fall under the essential services for the banking sector. 

He said, “I called Mumbai Police yesterday night to complain about Teleperformance, Mumbai after understanding that they are still operating after the lockdown was announced and that no communication was sent to employees regarding the shutdown/work from home. I also understood that whenever Mumbai Police would come for checking, the office lights were being switched off to show that they are not operating.”

The supervisors are making employees sign a declaration that they are happy with the measures taken by the company like installing hand sanitisers and that they were voluntarily ready to work.” 

Management Threatened Employees With Salary Cuts

Some employees have also revealed that they are being given sleeping bags and forced to to stay in office. He also said that they are working for UK-based processes of Barclays Bank, handling their credit cards, debit cards, and online banking as well. The company also claims that they have got approval from Essential Commodities Maintenance Act. 

Apparently, despite the employees’s ability to work remotely, the management has been threatening them with salary cuts and marking it as leaves.