The Age of Uncertainty is striking India’s globally feted infotech industry hard. For two decades, the sector’s been a star performer, vacuuming up vast numbers of freshly minted college graduates and turning cities like Bengaluru into infotech powerhouses recognised worldwide. Now changing technologies are leading to widespread job losses, especially at the middle-of-the-pyramid levels where many long-term employees find themselves stuck. As fears about retrenchment grow, the giant workforce is, unsurprisingly, looking at protecting itself by unionising and harnessing the power of collective bargaining. The unions have so far only attracted small numbers, but as times grow, more unsettled for the sector, that could change. One of them, FITE (Federation of Infotech Employees), recently represented workers who were asked to leave by industry giant Cognizant, before the Chennai labour commissioner. Crucially, the labour commissioner ruled that IT industry workers are covered by the Industrial Disputes Act. FITE aims to use India’s labour laws to battle for workers rights.
The $150-billion IT services industry’s bosses argue that a bitterly competitive, customer-focused industry can’t function with threats of walkouts and strikes. As it is, players say the boom times are over and the threat of strike action may further weaken the Indian IT industry’s position in the global marketplace. They insist there’s nothing they can do but bow to technological change and brutal market realities. The industry’s leaders also assert, somewhat unsustainably, that unions are only suitable for blue-collar factory jobs. But it could equally be argued that white-collar workers like medical representatives in the pharmaceutical industry were unionised years ago and that employees at large IT companies, some of which employ a lakh or more, urgently need collective representation.
The industry has already realised that its employees need to be re-skilled and made proficient in the latest technologies. A 2016 NASSCOM report suggested that 60-70 per cent of the existing workforce would need to be re-skilled. While changing technology and automation will displace jobs, there will be others created in emerging digital areas. That said, re-skilling isn’t easy, especially because of the huge numbers involved: the Indian IT-BPO industry has nearly four million employees. Several of them though are already actively seeking new skills, logging onto training platforms after-hours. During the go-go years, the giant IT companies were known as thoughtful and caring employers; they need to keep that reputation, now that tougher times are here.