BANGALORE, INDIA: UNITES, a trade union established for the cause of the employees in Information Technology and enabled services, announced that it would file a public interest litigation against the IT firms in India, which have reportedly been enforcing long working hours on its employers.

The union alleged that the extended working hours is a violation of Indian Factories Act, 1948 that states eight hours of mandate working a day.

The UNITES is an affiliate to the Indian National Trade Union Congress. It has around 10 per cent IT/BPO workforce with over two million people as its members and aims to protect rights and interest of IT employees.

The IT firms insisted that they have not forged over the rules, as the workers have to work only 48 hours a week – eight hours a day for six days a week.

However, since most of the IT companies follow a five-day week pattern, the working hours are longer to meet the 48 hours target.

But Karthik Shekar, general secretary, UNITES, disagrees with this argument. “The labour law in India allows only eight hours of work while most of the IT companies make workers work for twelve hours a day,” he said CyberMedia News.

He added that they would take this issue to the notice of Nasscom, the industry body and has planned to meet Nasscom on December 5, and also the IT minister.

The meeting would be pertaining to the issues dealing with job cuts and various other security measures for IT professionals.

Karthik Shekar added, “the IT firms are taking a double stand, as on the one hand they are firing people saying they are not getting enough work, and on the other hand, they are forcing employees to work more since they are getting more work.”

He said that it is not justified to make the IT and ITES employees bear extra burden in the name of the global economic slowdown. While hiring an employee the IT companies never give a stand-alone rule about the working hours and at times even offer flexible working hours.

However, once the employee joins the organization, the scenario changes and all the promises about working hours are violated, he said.

How do you see the scenario? Are the Indian companies exploiting employees in the name of slowdown?