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ShareKOLKATA/BANGALORE/KOCHI: The information technology sector has rejected the Left's move to form trade unions in the industry. Ravi Venkatesan, chairman of Microsoft India, met West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya in Kolkata on Thursday and conveyed the industry's
sentiments.
Venkatesan said it was unclear how formation of unions would help the sector or its employees, and neither the CPI(M) nor its labour wing had clarified this. "There should be no third-party interference in the industry," he said, claiming that managements and employees are well-equipped to run it.
Though Bhattacharya refused to comment, state Industries and Commerce Minister Nirupam Sen said the government has no role to play in the matter. "It is up to the employees to decide whether they want a union," he said.
Chittabrata Majumdar, general secretary of the Centre for Indian Trade Unions, said unions are needed in the sector because IT firms are violating the country's labour laws and denying employees their rights.
IT executives in Bangalore suggested individual bargaining is better for the industry. "Unions may be necessary when demand is less than supply," R Mohan, adviser for IT firm HTMT, told DNA. "But now demand far outstrips supply in the IT and BPO sectors and employees are pampered with high wages and good working conditions."
The IT hub is already home to the Indian arm of Union Network International (UNI), a loose network of 600 unions around the world, which has wooed nearly 500 workers in BPOs and software firms.
Rahul Patwardhan, CEO, LogicaCMG, said the IT sector already has better HR practices than most other industries. "People should be extremely sensitive in any attempt to create roadblocks that will harm the country's image," he said.
"By trying to unionise the industry, the Left parties are falling into the trap of those in the West who are opposed to outsourcing," a top executive of a large software exporter, who requested anonymity, said. "In the BPO industry that has over 40 per cent attrition rate, employees have two or three offers all the time. Which employer would dare to harass them?"
In Kochi, Nandakumar, who heads SunTec, a leading IT company in the Technopark, said employees in the sector get handsome pay packets. "IT operations here go ahead with orders from abroad and any issue here could see our clients looking elsewhere," he said.
What is worrisome for Kerala is that the introduction of trade unionism in the IT sector is being suggested at a time when the proposed Rs15 billion ($333 million) Smart City project, to be built by Dubai Internet City in Kochi, is in the final stages of negotiation.
State Planning Board member G Vijayraghavan, who set up the Technopark, said Kerala would be the worst sufferer if trade unions are allowed in the IT sector. "This will affect companies engaged in the BPO and ITeS (IT-enabled services) sectors," he said.
"Despite Kochi being voted the best place in the country for these two sectors, not even 1 per cent of jobs in this sector have come here because of Kerala's history of hartals being organised at the drop of a hat."
The CPI-M should not promote itself at the expense of the state, he said. Prakash Gurbaxani, CEO of Transworks, argued that "the industry dynamics relating to growth opportunities based on individual performance versus tenure, the employee-management relationship, the infrastructure and benefits provided to employees, and the wage increases offered are not conducive to a unionised environment".
