This Article was originally published by The Hindu :- http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/all-is...

Over 2,000 employees complain to Labour Commission

Information Technology professionals in Hyderabad are not a happy lot. With the IT employees demanding job security or reinstatement, as many as 2,000 complaints — both from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh — have reached the Labour Commission in the past four months.

Two writ petitions filed by six former Tech Mahindra employees have been admitted by the Hyderabad High Court. The Labour Commission has also received petitions from employees of IT giants Wipro, Cognizant, Tata Consultancy Services and Accenture.

While most complaints are about forceful resignations or unjustified demotions, some even accuse companies of fraudulently procuring unauthorised resignations.

“One of the employees complained that he was asked to resign when he was away on a holiday. When he refused, the company allegedly filed his resignation without proper authorisation, thereby terminating him,” explained a Labour Commission official who deals with complaints. “Resignations which are collected online will have to be considered illegal,” the official said, on condition of anonymity. Labour Commission is a quasi-judicial entity, the mandate of which is to implement labour laws of the State and Central governments.

Employees demoralised

Some employees have accused companies of “benching them indefinitely.” “Projects are not allocated to them, even though they are highly qualified. Some employees are given poor rating during appraisal to block their chances of getting promotions. Some companies which do not want to sack people directly, ask their employees to resign on their own. The threat is very real,” said Praveen, an IT employee and office-bearer of Forum of IT Professionals. The IT forum deals with rising labour problems in the city’s IT sector.

“Once a complaint is filed with the Commission, the petitioner should not be removed from duty till the Commission rules on the case,” Mr. Praveen said.

In their complaint, employees have accused companies of optimising profits by downsizing the workforce.

The IT forum has said massive downsizing should not be allowed since most companies have done well in the first two quarters of this financial year.