Friends,
TCS is in the process of laying off 25,000 employees. All those guillotined are our colleagues. The CEOs call it jobs chopping. You might have escaped the blood bath now. Who next and when? The threat is hanging over all of us
They lift us straight from campus, and by the time we reach mid thirties we are sucked dry and are ready to be thrown out. For them this is corporate Dharma. At a time, when we look forward to a fruitful career and peaceful family life, we are forced to make a fresh start in the job market competing with kids just out of college.
Our corporate leaders know what this entails! Depressions, broken homes and suicides. Still they will ram through this round of layoff and a succession of further layoffs. They are concerned only about their quarterly profit margins.
What is worse, we look at this corporate injustice as some sort of natural calamity, against which one can do nothing. Thousands of people leave in tears. In IBM employees are humiliated, asked to leave on the spot, their laptops confiscated by the guards. Even a meek illiterate woman would resist rape. But we don’t raise a finger in protest, when a friend’s job is chopped off in our next cubicle. This calamity unfolds in front your own eyes, yet you choose to remain silent – to save your job.
Can you? It is only a matter of time before every IT employee in his thirties is to face this situation. The only way to smash this job cutting machine is to Unionize! The Corporates unionise themselves as NASCOM and blacklist the ones who dare to speak against them. But some of us think that union is a business of workers. What is the difference between an axed TCSer and an axed FOXCONNer? The pay cheque?
As the vanguard of 21st century hi tech universe, we network in the virtual world and ensure security for systems we design, implement and maintain. It’s time we network ourselves as a union and ensure security and honour for our own lives. After years of toil, we can’t be thrown out as dirty rags.
A collective action of workers in an industry like Hyundai would affect industrial production in a unit, and some of its ancilliaries. But a threat of collective action by IT workers, would send shivers down the spine of NASSCOM, and Europe and US would feel the tremors of our action.
But fear is the key corporates hold. The fear that one loses his job on forming an union, is not unique to IT employees. Workers who try to organize are threatened with dismissal in every industry. Only those who defy such threat, save their jobs and save their honour. If they cut your job to increase their profit, threaten them with loss. Their fear of loss could earn you your job.
25K+ TCSers in Chennai and 3 lakh+ overall. This is your collective might. You have to unionize. We understand your anxieties and hesitations. As we have successfully organized unions in various industries, we believe we could together fight this layoff.
We, NDLF together with vinavu.com have organized a meeting of trade union leaders, legal experts and IT industry people. We invite you to the meeting to get answers to your queries and share your ideas.
By
New Democratic Labour Front, Tamil Nadu.
Contact:
https://www.facebook.com/VinavuCombatsLayoff
Phone : 90031 98576
Mail: combatlayoff@gmail.com
