Aggrieved techies in TN meet state govt; union might be in the offing

Next meeting is scheduled on May 22

A tripartite meeting between Cognizant Technology Solutions, group of employees and State Labour Department was held in Chennai on Wednesday raising speculation that an IT union is slowly taking shape in the state.

This is the second such meeting held by the state with Cognizant and employees who were asked to leave from the company. Last week a conciliation meeting was held in Hyderabad, with the company seeking two weeks to respond.

During Wednesday's meeting in Chennai, a group of employees under the leadership of Forum of IT Employees (FITE) participated and alleged that the company is forcing some of the employees to submit resignation.

While an e-mail sent to Cognizant seeking its comment on the meeting did not elicit response till the time of this story getting published, FITE representatives have said during the meeting the company claimed that neither were they laying off employees nor forcing anybody to resign.

Vinod, general secretary of FITE said that the company has said that it would look into any issues, if there are, before the next meeting, which is scheduled on May 22.

A labour department official said that the meeting was similar to any other meeting and there is nothing special in it.

T V Mohandas Pai, former board member at Infosys questioned the logic of forming a union for IT employees. "TN Technies say they're moving to form India's first IT union. Do IT folks, who change jobs easily (and are) highly paid need this?," he tweeted.

It may be noted that unions such as FITE and NDLF IT Employees Wing have been trying to mobilise IT employees alleging that the IT firms are laying off large number of employees in the backdrop of automation, digitisation and cost cutting measures, even without trying to reskill employees.

Companies including Cognizant have denied such allegations.