Bangalore: Not all employee terminations can be blamed on a slowing economy.
Sometimes, departures turn ugly and acrimonious, especially when the allegations of employer versus employee turn into a case of pointing fingers at one another.
Illustration: Malay Karmakar / Mint
The problem seems to be especially acute in the business process outsourcing (BPO) arena, according to many labour experts, who cite long and erratic working hours, and a lack of protections for a young workforce that often doesn’t necessarily know its rights. Others add that some state government labour departments—trying to keep industry and large employers happy and in their state—are going easy on these companies. The influx of more young women into the workforce has also led to more cases of sexual harassment, which have largely gone unreported and undocumented.
“While old economy companies have strong trade unions, these BPO companies have none of that,” says Vinod Shetty, a Mumbai-based labour lawyer and founder of Young Professionals Collective, a welfare organization for BPO workers.
“Many of the employees are not highly educated and they have hardly any awareness to take up labour issues.”
But, after years of silence, some employees are turning to the legal system to help them fight back.
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It is impossible to independently ascertain whether one or two specific complaints illustrate a pattern of behaviour at any company, indeed the sector, and several of these cases are in the realm of “he said, they said”.
Still, the anecdotes illustrate what some labour experts say is a clear sign of pent-up issues across the industry that aren’t necessarily company- or manager-specific.
A 30-year-old female ex-employee of Byond Global Outsourcing Pvt. Ltd has filed a complaint against the Bangalore arm of the Australian collection agency, alleging that the company still owes her money.
Mint reviewed her complaint but is withholding the customer executive’s name because she would only speak about the case under condition of anonymity.
The complaint is not in the public domain. According to the complaint, the customer executive claims her May 2008 salary had been withheld, that she was accused of rude behaviour towards her colleagues and was asked to sign a corrective action plan. She says she refused to sign the document and asked for an explanation and details of the accusation against her. When Byond Global refused to give her details, she offered to resign and she was simultaneously terminated.
“I was not even allowed to go to my desk…outside the office, the (human resources) managers surrounded me and forced me to sign a no-dues certificate which I somehow resisted,” she says.
Tearfully, she said she has been out of work for more than three months now. Every time she goes for an interview she clears several rounds until the company asks for her relieving letter. She says she has none—and invariably, doesn’t hear from the company again.