IT behemoth Cognizant is now adopting unfair means to save money, and to fire employees.
As per a prominent employee union from Karnataka, Cognizant is forcefully benching employees, and then firing them after 30-45 days citing no work.
This not only breaks the Govt rules, but also is unethical.
Around 18000 such employees can be fired, as per the employee union.
IT Employee Union: Cognizant Is Firing 18,000 Benched Employees
Karnataka State IT employee Union (KITU) has informed The Indian Express that IT major Cognizant has decided to fire upto 18,000 employees, after benching them.
The modus operandi of this mass-layoff is simple: First place the employees in the bench, citing lack of performance and/or less projects,
And then after 30-45 days, fire them citing no improvement in skills and/or no work to do.
We have already reported that the same modus operandi is being used by Cognizant in Chennai as well, and we reported that around 18000 employees can be fired by them in the coming days.
The employee union has asked the employees not to resign under management pressure.
Employee Union Asks Govt To Stop This
The spokesperson from KITU has said that they will ask Govt to stop this mass-layoff, which is illegal, and unethical. They may contact Labor Commissioner in the coming days.
The spokesperson from KITU said, “The mass retrenchments are happening in violation of the labour laws. We will register a complaint with the State Labour department,”
The statement from KITU says: “The reports on large scale layoffs are coming from ‘Cognizant’ in the name of ‘effectively managing workforce utilisation’. Thousands of employees all over India are going to be victims of this. Karnataka State IT/ITeS Employees Union (#KITU) strongly condemns this illegal and inhuman decision taken by the management of Cognizant,”
The employee union has alleged that some benched employees have already been asked to resign, and this trend will continue as the company is looking at saving money during the coronavirus pandemic.
Cognizant Is Illegally Firing Employees?
As per KITU, if any organization is planning to fire more than 100 employees, then prior permission from the Labor Department is required,
But with Cognizant, no such thing is being done.
They said, “Rebranding a layoff by arguing that employees voluntarily resigned when they were, in fact, forced to resign, is also against the law.”
There has been no response from Cognizant on this issue.
We will keep you updated, as more details come in.
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