20230217 Hyderabad: Infosys draws fire after firing freshers
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Hyderabad: Infosys draws fire after firing freshers
Updated: 2023-02-17
HYDERABAD: Four months after it wrote to Union minister of electronics & information technology, Ashwin Vaishnaw, seeking his intervention on revocation of offer letters to aspiring techies by IT giants, the Forum of IT Professionals (ForIT) has now slammed Infosys for terminating hundreds of freshers and demanded they be reinstated.
“ForIT strongly condemns actions of Infosys in terminating hundreds of freshers, citing their ‘failure to clear Infosys internal fresher assessment test’. Infosys has essentially thrown the lives of hundreds of people into disarray,” said ForIT, amid the fresh wave of layoffs.
“ForIT demands Infosys immediately stop these illegal actions and take back sacked employees. The government must intervene and ensure that jobs of IT professionals are protected,” it said in a statement on Infosys retrenchment. It urged affected Infosys freshers not to resign and offered its assistance to those undergoing training to face internal assessments.
The forum, which has also been filing and fighting cases on behalf of IT professionals in courts and the labour commissioner’s office, also demanded the labour department take suo motu cognisance of the issue and reinstate freshers.
While an email sent out to Infosys, seeking a comment on the issue went unanswered, For IT general secretary Praveen Chandrahas told TOI they have been getting calls from hundreds of Infosys freshers, facing this problem and suspect the number of affected in Telangana alone could be around 500.
Citing Section 47 of Shops and Establishments Act, ForIT said this lays down rules and ensures employees cannot be terminated based on whims and fancies of the company. “IT workers are subject to labour laws and these companies are required to abide by them. The government should treat every violation as unlawful and take swift action.”
The Hyderabad-based forum, which represents interests of IT professionals, said: “A company with a gross profit of Rs 11,757 crore in the last quarter (YoY CC revenue growth of 13.7%) should not kill hopes in the future of budding employees whose training cost is a tiny amount for the company.”
Lashing out at Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan for his statement that “while layoffs are undesirable, the practice cannot be avoided”, ForIT termed it uncalled for and said such “irresponsible” statements demotivate the workforce.
The IT forum also said layoffs, if any, should begin at the top. “Company CEOs and sales teams that fail to get more projects are the ones whose failures trigger revenue shortfall. Layoffs should begin from the top and not the workforce, who are wealth generators for the company,” it said.
Pointing out that 15 of 100 engineers are joining the IT industry in recent times, the forum said: “After going through several exams and securing a job, they can’t be made scapegoats by saying they can’t further scale up. Employees should be given enough opportunities.”
Web Source: The Times of India