Business

L&T CMD dreams of 90-hr work-week; India’s 10 top bigwigs scowl

By Quaid Najmi

Posted on January 14, 2025

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Mumbai, Jan. 14: A purportedly ‘progressive’ statement of Larsen & Toubro group Chairman-Managing Director S. N. Subrahmanyan (SNS) – advocating a 90-hour-week and frowning at his 4-lakh plus employees for ‘staring’ at their wives on Sundays – sparked a huge backlash from India Inc, trade unions, celebs and commoners, besides an acidic outpour and merciless lampooning on the social media.

Coming at a time when India notched rock-bottom (at No. 126 out of 143) in the World Happiness Report-2024 – SNS’ remarks earned glares from many magnates like Gautam Adani, Anand Mahindra, Harsh Goenka, Adar Poonawalla, Rajiv Bajaj, Harsh Mariwala, CITU, AITUC, actress-activist Deepika Padukone, plus many more.

The ‘surgical strikes’ gained momentum after his jaw-dropper mega-salary package leaked into the public domain – a stupendous Rs. 51-crore plus per annum, or around Rs. 4.25 crore pm – making SNS among the highest-paid corporate honchos in India.

This was in contrast with the Organization of Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD)’s 2023 list of 30 countries with the highest average wages/salaries, in which India does not figure.

The L&T CMD asking his tribe to take their ‘eyes’ off their wives was viewed as downright wicked, and adding injury to India’s miserable track record on the WHR and OECD lists.

Needless to say, he earned liberal flak from his own ilk and outside, though the company rushed to his defence.

10 Top reactions:

• Skirting a direct hit, Adani– the world’s second richest Indian – urged in an interview that nobody should ‘impose’ their individual work-life balance on others. He called upon employees to discover their own ‘work-life’ balance, while exhorting they ought to spend at least 4 hours daily with the family, for mutual happiness.
• Taking a dig, Mahindra said that his wife is adorable and he also loved ‘staring’ at her, but cautioned that the entire debate was proceeding in the wrong direction.
• Reacting harshly, Goenka incredulously asked why just a 90-hour week, and why not “rename Sunday to ‘Sun-duty’, make the weekly-off mythical”, and emphatically said that success was not about ‘extra working hours’, but ‘about ‘working smart’ – adding a hashtag for impact: #WorkSmartNot Slave.
• Bajaj plunged into the row, declaring the quantitative measure for work hours as ‘archaic and regressive’, but dared the proponents to start it at the top, and go down the rungs “if it succeeds”.
• Admitting hard work is the backbone of success, Mariwala added that “it is about the quality and passion put into the work hours rather than the number of hours clocked in”, the work should be so rewarding and energizing that work-life automatically integrates, “and that would lead to best results”.
• Poonawalla took a jibe at SNS’ suggestion reacting to Mahindra’s X post, saying, “Yes, even my wife (Natasha) thinks I am wonderful, she loves staring at me on Sunday” and stressed on quality rather than quantity always for a work-life balance.
• Flaying SNS, the All India Trade Union Congress General Secretary (Mrs.) Amarjeet Kaur said though India needs all the extra work hours possible, “what about the raging unemployment” with a lot of youthful energy going waste. She pointed out that the wealth created by the existing workforce at an (average) 48 hours a week is siphoned off by “leeches like Adanis, Ambanis, Choksis, Modis and others” increasing the rich-poor divide in India to a level where it was 80 years ago.
• Labelling SNS’ statement as ‘satanic’, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU)  General Secretary Tapan Kumar Sen suspected a ‘rogue competition among corporate messiahs” to rinse the blood and sweat of Indian workers in connivance with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government.
• The AITUC’s All India Working Women’s Forum Convenor Vahidha Nizam flayed the objectification, dehumanization and disrespect to the womenfolk by SNS’ remark, saying sternly: “Wives are not to be adorned or be ‘stared at’… Subrahmanyan should know that a woman is an independent entity and her identity is not defined by her relationships.”
• Padukone, who runs the ‘Live Love Laugh Foundation’, wrote on social media: “Shocking to see people in such senior position make such statements… #mentalhealthmatter.”

Armed with the first juicy public topic of 2025, Social Media erupted into a storm – flooding platforms with a host of memes, jokes, shorts, reels – plus acerbic rebuttals to such ludicrous proposals.

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