{"id":4873,"date":"2012-11-03T16:32:51","date_gmt":"2012-11-03T15:32:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/socialism.in\/?p=4873"},"modified":"2012-11-04T05:10:07","modified_gmt":"2012-11-04T04:10:07","slug":"exploitation-in-it-industry-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialism.in\/?p=4873","title":{"rendered":"Exploitation in IT Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following article is written by an IT industry employee relating to a case in his\/ her company, which gives us a glimpse on the pressures and exploitations faced by the workforce in this much glorified industry.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Editors<\/em><\/strong><\/span>
\n Socialism.in<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Bharat{{1}} was an honest and hard working man who had a wonderful family. But his honest nature turned out to be his biggest weakness which his employers took full advantage of. Bharat worked for Phasis{{2}} in Bangalore, which like all IT firms ‘promised’ its employees perks which included big salary packages and opportunities to work abroad. Driven by peer pressure and taken advantage of by his managers, on one fateful weekend he worked non stop for 3 days before succumbing to a heart attack in office.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was passed off as an incident in which the person involved didn’t take care of his health, that the person in his greed went overboard. But any IT employee will testify that 99% of the time it is the manager’s ridiculous demands that drive these people to do what they do.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are mainly two ways an IT employee can earn good money. He\/she should either get promotions at regular intervals or get a chance to work abroad for a couple of years. In both these cases the immediate manager’s opinion reigns supreme. No employee would want their months of dedication and torture go waste just because the manager has made unreasonable demands. Constant threats of a bad rating or job termination thus becomes a very effective tool which the management uses with scant regard, sometimes resulting in unfortunate incidents like Bharat’s.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What needs to be noted is that there is no way and no point to prove the insolence of the management, as this is the very behaviour that is encouraged by all levels of management. There is also no provision for employees to form any sort of union or support group. Employees work day and night to deliver goods within time-lines set by management. However, while the worker is paid a very tiny flat amount, the management get a cut of the profits in addition to their salaries, which is also many times higher.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bharats family filed a case against Phasis. In a what seemed to be a very suspicious gesture, the management then called all the employees on the floor and asked volunteers to donate a good sum of money as a token of solidarity. Since this news never appeared on the mainstream media and there was no news about the case going further, we do not know if the money was used for an out of court settlement. But what we do know is that stern warnings were given to the employees not to spread ‘rumours’. The matter was effectively hushed up and swept under the carpet.<\/span><\/p>\n

Knowledge based jobs may have the allure of higher than average salaries. But the exploitations are very cleverly given names like flexibility, challenges, winning attitude etc. No wonder these companies were so upset when the proposal to impose labour laws on them was introduced. For the benefit of thousands of people, I do hope that these laws are imposed and companies be made accountable for the well being of their employees.<\/span><\/p>\n

[[1]]Editor’s Note:<\/strong> Name of the victim has been changed to keep the victim’s name anonymous and safe[[1]]<\/span><\/p>\n

[[2]] Name of Company Changed[[2]]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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