Press Release : Stop Cognizant (CTS) HR’s Illegal Activities

We call upon all IT Employees to take a stand and join the struggle against corporate profit hunt at the cost of employees.

Please join New Democratic IT/ITES Employees Circle.

Also read this article about the root cause of the current madness going on in IT sector.

In March this year, media reports in prominent business dailies revealed that Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS) is planning to retrench around 6,000 employees. This is being done to increase the operational margin from 19.5 percent at present to 22 percent in 2019 as demanded by their shareholder Elliott management which owns 4 percentage stake in the company.

Cognizant employees at work (photo from the internet)

We have been closely following the issue and mobilizing our members and other IT employees to resist this illegal practice. We come to know the following shocking details from our members working in various CTS offices:

1. 5% of the employees are marked for lay-off by giving them 4th and last rating MS (‘Met Some’ goals) through the annual appraisal system. The appraisal system itself is unscientific, opaque and arbitrary. Later this percentage has been raised to 7%. Out of 2.5 lakh employees of CTS, 7% comes to 15,000 which is not a small number.
2. Some employees who were given 2nd rating by the immediate supervisor were reassigned to 4th rating by HR.
3. Project managers are forced to release MS rated employees from their projects and instructed not to take them to fill the need in their project. The internal project allocation system is changed to block adding any MS rated employees to projects.
4. HR people call the employees marked for lay-off and ask them to resign, claiming that there is no opportunity for them in Cognizant. The employees are pressurized (tortured in the words of one employee) in closed door meetings. They are forced to put in their resignation papers. HR humiliate, insult and blackmail employees who have been working for the company for years.
5. NDLF IT Employees Wing started spreading word that the employees should resist this forced resignations and HR can not terminate anyone. Now, we come to know that some HR managers resort to auto generating resignation emails from the employees account.
6. Many managers inside CTS dislike this dishonest, illegal and unfair HR practices. But they were told that the decision comes from top levels.

NDLF-IT Employees Wing strongly condemns the illegal, unethical and sometimes even criminal practices by CTS HR. We demand that CTS immediately stop the forced resignations and illegal retrenchment of its employees, reinstate all affected employees and create opportunities to re-skill the employees as per the current trends.

We call upon all IT employees to resist resignations forced upon them by their employers. Appraisal system and forced resignations violate Indian labour law. IT/ITES companies don’t have the right to terminate employees without due process. Otherwise they won’t even bother with forced resignations.

We request employees to contact NDLF – IT Employees Wing and consult our lawyers before deciding on the company’s demands. Join NDLF – IT Employees Wing to make yourself stronger.

We call upon all IT Employees to take a stand and join the struggle against corporate profit hunt at the cost of employees.

Please join New Democratic IT/ITES Employees Circle.

Also read this article about the root cause of the current madness going on in IT sector.

New Democratic Labour Front – IT Employees Wing

Contact
Phone : 90031 98576
Email : combatlayoff@gmail.com
Site : new-democrats.com