Stop mass retrenchments in Accenture

The IT sector is witnessing a string of mass terminations right now. Under their ‘Fit For Growth’ plan, Cognizant has already reduced their employee strength by more than 9,000. In this situation, we foresee another 5,000 people in Cognizant losing their jobs in the next one or two months.

The CEO of Accenture has said that the company is likely to fire about 5% of its workforce worldwide. This means that it is likely to fire 10,000 people in India. 

According to the Industrial Dispute Act, 1947, if a company has more than 100 employees, it must obtain an approval from the Labour Department in order to execute a retrenchment. This rule exists for a good reason. Large companies tend to throw their employees and workers under the bus at the first sign of trouble. Such measures make it difficult for companies to treat their employees, from whom all their value is derived, as dispensable.

In the recent past, IT giants have tried to bypass this rule by making their employees resign “voluntarily”. The resignations are obviously not voluntary – companies create conditions such that employees are left with no other option but to resign.

Accenture benefited a great deal from its employees’ hard work in the boom years of Indian IT. Many of its employees worked well over 8 hours a day and earned high revenues for the company. When times are tough, Accenture must share these revenues that it earned from its employees through their extra work over all these years.

Unemployment in India is at historically high levels. When one or two IT giants are allowed to execute such mass retrenchments by the government, every other company also feels that it is free to fire their employees under the excuse of the pandemic.