Above: A call centre executive (file photo)

IT industry employees converge, demand labour laws as protection, but can the industry bear the burden?

~By Sujit Bhar

An interesting development has happened vis-a-vis labour laws related to the IT sector of India. IT techies in Hyderabad have recently met and decided that this was one sector that also should come under the labour laws of the country.

According to reports this was the first state level forum of such professionals who have also elected a 27-member executive committee to represent IT professionals in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

The demand of these techies’ group that is trying to provide help to retrenched professionals in this sector have now demanded that the Telangana government should force companies to implement labour laws of the country to protect employees in the IT and ITeS sector.

The group has set out their objectives in a declaration, which says: “For a nation like India, with a large portion of the young generation associated with the knowledge economy and millions planning their career to be a part of the same, it makes it all the more important that stability is ensured in lives of the workforce and the industry.”

The declaration also states: “Automation is taking over many functions and tasks that were performed by IT professionals manually. Due to restrictive means of terminating employees by tagging them as non-performers, companies are denying them opportunity elsewhere, reducing their wages and not providing adequate employment. We demand the labour department to ensure the implementation of labour laws in IT, IT&ES industry and the state government must issues a white paper on the same,” the declaration, penned by Kiran Chandra, president of union of IT professionals, said.

They want to form a trade union and want to fight the alleged hire-and-fire policies of tech companies of the country. Last year saw several retrenchments in large batches, especially from centres of top companies such as Verizon and Tech Mahindra, mostly based in tech zones in Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.

There has been even a representation from IT professionals to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) against so-called “inhuman practices” of companies while laying off employees. A case in the Hyderabad court is in the hearing process.

THE PROBLEM THEREIN

That is the news part. The problem part in the formation of the group is the effect they could have on the overall industry’s health. The idea of a trade union isn’t bad – the Trade Unions Act of 1926 is clear that seven or more employees of a firm can join to form a trade union and this does not have to be affiliated to any political party or any established trade union. While the objective of the act is to improve relations between the management and the workers, restrictive trade practices, as has been mentioned in the act, could easily affect work inside these tech offices.

Tech companies are known to resort to firings, in the US style. They respond quickly to manpower needs with the change in overall workload at hand and also to the amount of AI-related help available from the system that could reduce manpower. If one compares workload of an employee in this sector – as well as the workmen requirement of the companies – it is in some ways comparable to challenges faced by industries that have seasonal demand, such as winter wear manufacturers.

Such industries have always demanded from the government a policy that could allow seasonal employment boosts, followed by lay-offs. That is the only way they can survive the ups and downs. Indian labour laws, however, are rigid and do not allow for such liberties.

Such laws weren’t applicable to the IT industry. Initially they were thought to be evergreen employers as long as back-end operations were the main functions of the industry. With other tech-specialised and English speaking countries such as the countries such as The Philippines and Vietnam and even Sri Lanka taking away large chunks of work.

The interesting part of the protest of the employees is against automation. The problem with this is that their work is the very plinth of such automation. If it is just back-end work, then that work has come down to India simply because it is cheaper to do here rather than in the US or other European country. If AI or any other related automation does this better and cheaper, then that will be the target of all foreign companies. There is little that an Indian company can do in this regard. If such a thing happens, and the company is forced to retain all or most of its employees in a work vacuum, the company itself will fail.

Hence it would be interesting to see how Indian labour laws, in their present form, can apply to the IT industry. If a solution can be arrived at, then it will also benefit those seasonal industries that have been suffering for so long.

In the end, though, the “knowledge industry” as it is called – a better expression could be “data industry” – could see a huge shrinkage of workforce, labour laws or not.