HYDERABAD: Retrenched techies fighting against their alleged ‘illegal’ layoff now have a 2016 Government Order (GO) to strengthen their fight at the conciliation meetings. The GO nullifies a common perception among several techies and employers: that labour laws are not applicable to the MNCs. According to ICT policy 2016 of GO MS - 3, the IT industry is exempt from “inspection” under seven labour laws mentioned in the GO. It, however, does not mention of exempting the labour laws.
“The laws are exempted from inspection but for specific complaints, we can still go ahead and check,” informed E Gangadhar, Joint Commissioner, Labour, Hyderabad. He added that all labour laws are applicable to the IT industry as they are Industries that are registered under The Telangana Shops and Establishment Act, 1988.
A majority of the retrenched techies regret about not knowing about the labour laws. In fact, it is only after they were ‘forcefully’ made to resign that they ‘learnt’ about the rights they are entitled to. “If at all we would have known that a termination process can be withheld when a petition with the labour department is pending, the scenario would be much different,” said a retrenched techie of Verizon Data Services India (VDSI) to an IT welfare group during a conciliation meeting.
“Initially it was another GO MS 22 of 2013 which created confusion as it exempted several provisions under the Shops and Establishments Act. But later it was upheld in the High Court,” said Kiran Chandra, Member, Forum for IT Professionals. Interestingly, the companies have a provision under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (IDA) to retrench its workforce in a procedure that is deemed right according to Chapter VA, but as it turns out, a majority of the companies are not following the law.
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