KOCHI: With media reports of lay-offs at the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) drawing attention from various quarters, the company that is functioning at Infopark, Kakkanad seems to have stopped issuing termination letters to employees.
According to Midhun Syam (name changed), a TCS employee, the company has postponed a meeting with an employee, which was scheduled to be held on Friday.
“As per the current procedure, the HR department would call employees for meeting through email and hold discussion. At the end, the employees will be made to submit resignation letters ‘voluntarily’. The company had sent such a mail for a meeting on Friday. But, it has been rescheduled, and the new date is yet to be announced. It was the reports of lay-off appeared in newspapers that made the company put the termination process on hold,” said Midhun.
“For all the meetings, there would be a pre-set agenda, but this meeting had none. The mail was similar to those issued to the terminated TCS employees,” he added.
The ongoing protest in Chennai by the Forum for IT Employees (FITE) against the company’s move, and the participation of various trade unions in the protest is also said to be a reason behind the company stopping the termination process.
Meanwhile, it is learnt that TCS had initially expressed wish to participate in the mega job fair being organised by the State Government’s Employability Centre at Cusat on January 10. However, later the company decided not to participate in the drive.
“The company was planning to hire freshers through the job fair. But, it dropped the idea after reports of the lay-off appeared in the media,” said a source in the company.
According to the FITE, an organisation working for the welfare and rights of IT employees in India, the number of terminated employees is not known. FITE has received as many as 4,000 e-petitions from employees who were given pink slips by the company.
Commenting on the issue, FITE coordinator Bharathi Dasan said that a protest would be staged in front of the company from next week.
“We have received more than 30 complaints of termination from staff at the Kochi facility of the company alone.
“We will also hold a ‘black gag’ protest in front of the Infopark in the coming days, and distribute brochures and leaflets among the techies,” Bharathi Dasan added.
Meanwhile, TCS a spokesperson refused to comment on the allegations raised against the company.