TCS under fire in US for being ‘biased’ towards Indian staff, laying off Americans; IT major calls claims ‘meritless’

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India's largest IT outsourcing firm, is under fire in the United States for allegedly being biased towards Indian employees and firing American workers during layoffs. The allegations by non-Indian employees in TCS' oversees office has prompted the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to open an investigation against the IT major, as per a report

According to a Bloomberg report, former employees who are largely professionals from non-South Asian ethnic backgrounds and over the age of 40 claim that they have been discriminated against by TCS based on their race, age and national origin.

They have alleged that TCS fired them but sided with their Indian colleagues, some of whom were working on H-1B visas.

According to the Bloomberg report citing emails and interviews with people familiar with the investigation, such layoffs at TCS began during the presidency of Joe Biden and continued under the Donald Trump administration. The laid off employees began filing complaints against TCS in late 2023.

TCS denies allegations

Over two dozen ex TCS employees have filed the complaints regarding discrimination, Bloomberg reported. However, TCS called the allegations misleading.

“Allegations that TCS engages in unlawful discrimination are meritless and misleading,” a company spokesperson was quoted as saying by the news agency.

“TCS has a strong track record of being an equal opportunity employer in the US, embracing the highest levels of integrity and values in our operations,” the spokesperson reportedly said.

Three former TCS workers in the US had made similar complaints to an employment tribunal, saying the company in 2023 discriminated against them based on their age and nationality as part of a redundancy program, as per a report by The Guardian earlier this month. TCS had denied such claims before the tribunal.

Discrimination impacting Americans

In April 2024, US Representative Seth Moulton wrote to the EEOC’s commissioners and its then-chair, Charlotte Burrows a letter asking the agency to consider launching a probe into TCS. He mentioned that residents of his state Massachusetts were among more than two dozen people who had submitted complaints to the agency.

TCS’s actions “may have constituted a pattern-or-practice of discrimination impacting Americans that falls within the EEOC’s jurisdiction,” he wrote. “Additionally, it may also have been a potential misuse of US work visa programs designed to fill US labour shortfalls.”

With over 6 lakh employees worldwide, TCS may now face investigation from EEOC, which is tasked with enforcing laws prohibiting discrimination in the workplace.

Workers accuse Milind Lakkad

As per the Bloomberg report, the former workers in their complaints claimed that the firings came after after TCS’s head of global human resources, Milind Lakkad, said in February 2023 that his company was open to hiring Indian visa workers in the US who had lost their jobs at major tech firms.

Lakkad in 2023 in an interview with news agency PTI noted that at the time 70 per cent of its US employees were Americans. He said that TCS would like to get the number down to 50 per cent because it also “wants to offer global opportunities to its staff in India.”