New Delhi: With the Indian IT major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) under fire for allegedly resorting to “coerced resignations” and “illegal termination” of thousands of employees across the country, a Lok Sabha MP, who is also a member of the Standing Committee on Labour, Textiles and Skill Development, has demanded urgent government intervention to halt “illegal lay-offs” by the company and the broader Indian IT/ITES sector.
Stating that the July announcement of TCS to terminate over 12,000 employees was not an “isolated case,” MP from Bihar’s Karakat, Raja Ram Singh has written to Labour and Employment Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw that the actual figure appears much higher.
“This is not an isolated case but part of a wider sectoral trend where profit is prioritised at the cost of workers’ livelihoods’,” reads the letter which was sent to the two Union Ministers on October 1. The letter is in the possession of The Sunday Guardian.
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, Singh said that the government should take cognisance of his letter and the issue.
The MP further stressed that while TCS claims that these retrenchments were due to skill mismatch, the company’s “own annual report for FY 2024-25 showed that 91 per cent of employees received skill-upgradation training.”
“Clearly, these cuts are part of a global shift in employment policy from ‘growth at any cost’ to ‘profit at any cost’,” the MP wrote, alleging rampant labour law non-compliance by IT companies.
Emphasising that the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 requires prior government permission before retrenchment in larger establish- ments, Singh further said that no IT company has complied with the same. He further expressed concern about the IT/ITES firms grossly misusing the exemption granted to them by the Karnataka government from the compliance of the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, adding that they had been ignoring “the mandatory grievance redressal and reporting requirements.”
“Over 1.5 lakh workers were retrenched in 2024 alone, entirely in violation of law,” he wrote in his letter.
‘TCS TREATED LONG-SERVING WORKFORCE AS DISPOSABLE’
Stressing that the company employees have reported coerced resignations under threat of termination without compensation or relieving letters, the MP further told Mandaviya and Vaishnaw that many such employees fear blacklisting and some cases have even involved physical intimidation, adding that such practices allowed companies to bypass the law.
“TCS, with over USD 30 billion in annual revenue and 6 lakh employees, has treated its long-serving workforce as disposable. The increasing reliance on performance management systems has only deepened insecurity, harming workers’ health, morale and professional engagement,” he wrote.
Singh has also urged the Central government to immediately act on his six-pointer demands by halting all illegal retrenchments and directing companies to explore alternatives like reskilling and redeployment, reiterating the applicability of labour laws to IT/ITES establishments and initiating suo motu action against violations, withdrawing exemptions that give preferential treatment to IT employers under the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, creating a grievance redressal mechanism for coerced resignations and ensuring justice for affected workers, guaranteeing severance packages, extended health benefits, and job transition support for retrenched employees and mandating trilateral consultations between government, employers, and employee unions before any restructuring.
IIDEA endorses MP’s letter
The IT & ITES Democratic Employees Association (IIDEA), a body which works for the issues of the IT and ITES employees, has endorsed Singh’s concerns and condemned “the mass layoffs” as “a blatant and illegal act that shreds the social contract of India’s IT sector.”
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, Rubin, a member of the convening committee of the IIDEA said that they are receiving reports of forced resignations from across the country including the southern part of India and the west in Mumbai.
“We are currently raising such issues at the offices of the labour commissioner. We have held several demonstrations and are urging the affected employees to fight these illegal terminations. So far, we have not received any assurance from the government to help resolve the issue of mass layoffs,” he said.
‘BENCHED, DENIED WORK, FORCED TO RESIGN’
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, a TCS employee shared her horrific story. Even as scores of ex-employees of TCS are coming forward about stories of alleged “illegal termination” and “coerced resignation” from across the country, Anam (name changed) says that she is facing the heat for not resigning.
The employee who has been working for the company for several years now, alleged that she was first “benched”—a term used for a situation where an employee is not allocated any project and is not billable to clients—and later asked to meet company officials from human resources (HR) and the resource management group (RMG) in a series of meetings over the past three months.
“When I was benched, I first waited for representatives from other projects to approach me, but no one did. When I raised the issue repeatedly, I was informed that the RMG department has blocked my profile for getting projects. I managed to schedule interviews for projects using my own sources but later found that despite being selected for several projects, I was not allocated any work by the RMG department. In the last meeting, where I was called for a discussion on the way forward, I was coerced to either resign or face termination. This was despite the fact that I had raised several complaints on the employee grievance portal. None of my grievances were resolved,” Anam told The Sunday Guardian.
She further said that in the last meeting at one of the offices of TCS (The Sunday Guardian is withholding the name of the city to protect the employee’s identity), she was asked to hand over her mobile and gradually told to either resign or face termination.
“I was numb…later, I started crying. I asked them to give me my phone so that I could call my parents, but the officials told me to sign the resignation letter in the closed-door room. I was not allowed to leave without signing the resignation letter but I put my foot down and refused to resign,” said Anam.
She further said that she was later issued a chargesheet, which contains several allegations including that she was wilfully not taking up projects she was assigned.
“This, even as the RMG department had itself blocked my profile and it was because of my efforts that I got interviewed for projects. This is a tactic to terminate my service,” Anam said.
Meanwhile, Sachin Kumar, a laid-off employee who had accused three human resources department employees of manhandling him at the TCS’ office in Noida’s Sector 135 office, said that he has sent a show cause notice to the company and also given a copy of his complaint to Noida’s Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and Order), Rajeev Mishra.
Kumar had first given this complaint to the local police chowki of Sector 168 on 19 September. “The Additional CP (LO) forwarded my complaint to DCP Noida for inquiry,” he told The Sunday Guardian.
The Sunday Guardian has sent a mail to TCS seeking its response, which did not arrive by the time the newspaper went to print.
