An IT employee union has alleged that IT behemoth Cognizant has deployed a very sinister, and a shrewd way to terminate employees at their Chennai campus.
The IT employee union has released a press release on this matter, and have asked Cognizant to stop this.
Cognizant Benching Employees To Terminate Them?
New Democratic Labour Front (NDLF) is an IT employee union which is quite active in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
In a press release this week, NDLF has alleged that American IT major Cognizant is benching employees at Chennai offices, and then forcing them to resign after 41 days.
In the press release, NDLF said, “We came to know that Cognizant (CTS) is now actively pursuing to lay off, several of their employees at various locations in Chennai. Many of our union members have come to us complaining about the resignation threats made by HR over email and through telephone.”
This Is How Cognizant Is Forcing Employees To Resign?
As per NDLF, Cognizant is first benching employees, and taking them off their projects.
In the IT industry, benched employees are those, who have no active projects, and are kept in a resource pool for future projects.
Once an employee is placed in the bench, Cognizant gives them 35 days to upskill themselves, and find a project.
After 35 days, 6 days extension is also provided, and if that employee is not able to find a new project within those 41 days, then the HR asks them to resign, and if they resist, then as per NDLF, they are threatened by the HR.
In the press release, they said, “If the employee is not ready to resign they start getting threatening calls from HR warning that they will initiate the termination process. We also came to know that several employees were already sent out by the end of last month.”
Finding a new project with a new skill is almost impossible for an IT employees, that too within 41 days.
And this is why, as per NDLF, Cognizant is indirectly forcing their employees to resign.
Infact, several employees from their Cognizant offices have already been relieved from their duty, in the last few days.
What Cognizant Is Doing Is Not Fair
We spoke with Harpreet Singh Saluja, General Secretary of NITES on this development. He said, “The Hon’ble Supreme Court has extended its interim orders preventing any coercive action against employers for not complying with the direction to pay wages.
In a recent case Supreme Court passed an order that is not appropriate under such difficult conditions. The Court postponed arguments to the end of July and directed employers and employees to negotiate between themselves.
Hence the companies are taking undue advantage of the situation to increase their profitability. The Court has delayed the hearing favoring the employers. Since April complaints were made to State and Central Labour Ministry. A lot of PIL’s filed but the Court had passed orders directing that no coercive action be taken against employers who were violating the wages direction.
Hence now it’s the employees who are at the mercy of Government, Supreme Court and the capitalists. The employees who are nowhere responsible for the current economic devastation are losing their jobs and salaries everyday.
National Information Technology Employees Senate NITES is strongly standing with the employees and will fight beyond every possible extent to get justice for the affected employees.”
National Information Technology Employees Senate or NITES is a nonprofit dedicated towards empowering IT employees across India.
Ever since the lockdown started, NITES has been active in safeguarding IT employees’ interest as companies like Capgemini started canceling leaves of the employees and other IT firms fired employees during the lockdown.
Their campaign: #JusticeForEmployees is gaining momentum due to the same reasons.
We will keep you updated, as more details come in.
[…] week, New Democratic Labour Front (NDLF), an IT employee union, had alleged that US IT giant Cognizant is benching employees at Chennai offices, and then forcing them to resign after 41 […]