Retrenchment impact: Reinstated staff face discrimination

HYDERABAD: Several techies who survived retrenchment and got reinstated in their jobs claim that they face discrimination at their workplace because of voicing their dissent.   Kalyan Kumar (name changed), a team lead in a homegrown IT giant, said,” I have not been assigned any project even after six months. They also blocked my access to any further opportunities that I am entitled to as an employee,” he said. There is a loss of 20 per cent of payment.” “Even though we rebelled, we are not happy with the reinstatement. The management does not treat us the same as they used to earlier,” said Vijay Krishna, product manager of the tech giant. The only way to end it is by moving to a different company before the performance appraisal begins, he added.

The bias is also felt by the techies who got displaced after retrenchments at Verizon Data Services India (VDSI) in December last year. After uploading his resume to several job portals, a retrenched techie said that his resume was not honoured because of his association with VDSI which recently retrenched 200 of its employees. 

“Of the 10 companies that approached me, a majority of them asked about my previous association. If it was Verizon, they said that they would get back, but none replied,” said a retrenched techie of VDSI, requesting anonymity. Apuri Satya, a sacked techie from Tech Mahindra, who even approached the State High Court against his illegal retrenchment said that he approached at least 522 companies on LinkedIn. “I got only a few calls for a job and many did not even reply. I am at a crossroads now waiting for some or the other job to restabilise my life,” he said.  “The case of the retrenched techies will soon be taken to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) after the police investigation is done,” said Kiran Chandra Forum of IT Professionals (ForIT), an IT welfare organisation.  About 50 retrenched techies of VDSI lodged a complaint with the Madhapur police station alleging forceful resignation. The investigation is underway.