FITE forms state-level tri-partite committee to address IT employees’ issues

The Forum for Information Technology Employees (FITE), Maharashtra recently met with Maharashtra Labour Minister Sambhaji Patil Nilangikar and other senior officials to discuss various issues pertaining to the IT sector and subsequently declare the formation of a State-level Tri-partitite Committee for the same.

The meeting called by the Labour Minister was attended by IT companies, FITE members and other IT employees on the basis of the request of FITE (Maharashtra team) in order to get a deeper understanding of the challenges and problems being faced by IT employees in Maharashtra.

The issues that were highlighted by FITE included that of forced resignations, forced terminations, unfair background verification, holding of full and final settlement (FNF) and relieving letters by some companies, unfair employment bonds, forced performance in progress (PIP’s) as well as re-skilling.

The labour welfare rights, such as crèche facilitiy, overtime allowance, statutory bonus and so on, which organisations need to follow, were also brought up by the Union representatives. It was emphassised that these employee rights have to be enforced to the fullest and cross-checked by the Labour Ministry.

The employment of people by the IT sector in various states and the re-skilling efforts put in by IT companies was also discussed.

The Labour Minister addressed the issues related to the subsidies and infrastructure provided by the State Government to the companies and requested them to maintain employment. He stressed that regular meetings were required to address these matters and therefore it was just right to form a Tri-partite committee wherein IT companies, FITE as well as IT employees and the Labour Ministry can get together to understand and address the growing issues regarding IT employees and employment .

It is the first time that such a State Level Committee has been set up to provide a strong platform for both employees and employers to thrash out issues.

FITE and IT employees across India have expressed their gratitude for the state government’s intervention, which is expected to reduce the exploitation of employees in the IT sector and also check the practice of forced resignations.

Along with the FITE representatives, the meeting was attended by Shrikant Bhartiya, OSD to Maharashtra CM, the labour commissioner officers of Pune and Mumbai, representatives of FITE, senior officials and mangers of various IT firms, including Infosys, Wipro, TechM, Capgemini, Atos-Syntel, Cognizant, IBM, Persistent, Accenture, and Datamato; as well as the Principal Secretary- Labour Department ,Rajesh Kumar ji Meena and Labour Commissioner Sanjeev ji Jadhav.