 Trimming the fat, getting leaner or simply a move to ensure more profits in books, call it whatever one wants, but the latest wave of retrenchments and layoffs has exacerbated the difficulties of its employees. Occupying the headlines for many months now, the 2022 layoffs story includes the termination of contracts of more than 12,000 employees this year till May. To put this in context, over the last fiscal year, the number of startup employees laid off in India was not more than 1500. To discuss this worrying trend and its overall impact, today we have Mr. Kiran Chandra with us. Mr. Chandra is the president of one Hyderabad-based forum of IT professionals and is also associated with the free software movement of India. So my first question would be that how do you perceive these recent terminations within the Indian startup ecosystem? And if I ask you about the trends, the major forces that are driving this trend, could you tell us more about it? If you look at it, there have been terminations of retrenchments in the industry of the in the recent period, particularly when you speak of it is the unicorns that basically have retrenched the employees. And it is not really clear if they have actually removed the IT workforce or the other workforce that has been removed from the unicorns in all the retrenchments that have happened. But the fundamental issue is why and how is it that they have been able to do it is because of the change in the labor loss of the country. We all very well know that despite the earlier labor loss, which are productive of the employment, which are productive of the people's rights have been in place, now all of them have been subverted and people have been retrenched for quite for some time. At this point of time, while the industry itself is in a boom at the moment, till now there have been even the recruitment sort of in an all time high. The reason why they have been able to do it is just because of the change in labor loss, which is the primary reason and that people have got literally zero protection to fight them or challenge them in the courts. The central trade unions and other labor experts have already raised concern against these laws. What is your take on it? What do you think? How are they going to affect the IT employees from now on? When you see it, the new normal is going to be a higher end fire is going to be the norm in the industry now, because the new labor laws facilitated and even the labor rules that are here to basically implement the law will only look at it, will be only legalizing all the stuff that all the IT companies have been doing. The other important change, which is going to be is there is a number restriction that existed but earlier, even if any company which has 100 plus employees, there was certain restrictions on how they can fire the employees, et cetera. Now the number has increased to 300. It means any small companies which have worked less than 300 employees, there would be no loss even, the minimum loss that are applicable or what you could say maybe the minimal remedies that are existing, even they might not be applicable for most of the IT companies in the country, maybe when you speak about the earlier question that you asked, what would happen to the startup ecosystem? The startup ecosystem, any, even be it a startup company or be it any company which is less than 300 employees, the people would be really vulnerable who are working in those industries. And I think this is a stupid part of the legislation itself where the number has been increased to 300. It should be reverted back. We have been always demanding saying that any institution or any industry that is there because the change in nature of work also is in place. We see the change in nature of work where a huge amount of mental labor is actually being put into with the production process. When you see all these changes, even the law should be applicable, even to the firms which are lesser than 300 in number. So I think this is something which should be in place. And what happens to the IT professionals? Yes, the IT professionals need to be more aware. And sir, it has been a long perception that Indian IT sector has been immune to labor laws. I would like to ask you that what sort of changes do you see now in Indian IT sector? One is IT industry has never been immune to labor laws. But the perception has been that people did not really think about it because there was the whole bargaining capacity in the IT industry has been very different when compared to the other conventional industries. Since the Y2K period, there have been barring a very small durations where the IT industry did not have the kind of a boom that it had. But by and large, there was a boom period for a prolonged period. And when there was a boom period, people did not continue or think of fighting the employment order, or you could say the employers or the employers' associations, because they found it easy to find a job with a better payback. And that is why it prevented from going for a collective bargaining because when I as an individual still have got an opportunity to get a hike of 30% or 20% or 25% which is more than the conventional wage revision that happens in any industry where the conventional trade union movement happens. So this situation is the reason why people did not organize themselves into unions or go for collective bargaining in the IT sector. So why the people in the IT industry have not unionized is because they figured out new ways of bargaining or more than going for collective bargaining, they went ahead with individual bargaining when their individual bargaining capacity was higher, this is not something new. Even if you look at the trade unions historically also, when people lost their subsistence and then they started to move towards trading their skills when they lost their factory or foundry, they were privileged workers and that is when they started to trade their skills and that is how the trade unions have come into existence. And that's a very small duration of a honeymoon period which exists and that existed for the IT industry for a long time. And I would say that for the last two decades it existed. But the post-2016 was when there was a thinking that the consciousness among the IT professionals relatively increased when there was a sudden realization among them that labor loss are applicable to the workforce and that is when they started challenging it also. And my last question is Mr. Chandra that you have had a long experience in building a trade union in IT sector. What have been the breakthrough and what do you think is the way forward from here? The most important challenge was for us to basically go to the people and explain to them that labor loss are applicable to the IT industry. And I think the biggest challenge was that making people known to, making it known to the people. We have been doing it for more than a decade. But the response has been was very significant more than one and a half decades we have been trying to do it but the response or you could say the mass consciousness of the people just exponentially increased particularly in the period post-2016 when we could demonstratively go back and even the labor department also helped in counseling the IT industry saying that labor loss are applicable because of course there are people from the HR department who finish their MBAs and come and sit in the IT industry and live in their own make believe world who thought that labor loss really do not apply for the IT industry. So there was a friction for a short period but the toughest part was to basically make people aware of it and the change situation actually paved the way for it. And I think that was the game changer where we have actually moved on from conciliation meetings to negotiations with the company where we could basically put back people into the IT industry. Very significant I would say that most of the including MNCs also we had many places where we have got employees reinstated back into the companies because it was not an easy experience also because we had to expose a certain industry which were really a crooked or cruel in the way in which they retrained the employees it is not that we just wanted to blame or blame or mud slinging over all the enterprises but there have been certain enterprises for instance like Verizon. Verizon basically retrained employees with the people whom they employed to retrain employees was one is paramedical staff, the employed bouncers and also psychiatrists who were there to basically psychologists or psychiatrists who were there. This was the team of people who along with the IT professionals who along with the HR managers or HR team started firing the IT professionals in Verizon it was a huge number of people close to eight to 900 people were fired in the span of two days and when people just said I am not going to sign here it was the bouncers who were flexing their muscles and ensuring that people sign and these kinds of bullying we have even gone to the extent of putting up criminal cases with all the video recordings being submitted in the court. I think when companies resorted to such cruelty such cruelty had to be exposed and once such cruelty was exposed there was solidarity built within the workforce also I think these are a certain changes, challenges that actually helped us and which we had to face that helped us in mobilizing the folks to stand in solidarity with each other. What is happening is they these labor courts more than weakening the unions are basically breaking the spine of the working people's bargaining capacity. The bargaining capacity or the limited capacity I would I am not going to speak about what happens with the public sector or the other industries but when I look at the new generation industries or you could say all the new generation industries be it pharma be it IT or be it any other biotech companies or any of these new generation industries it is going to become the bargaining capacity has been significantly high because the industry has been a booming industry if you look at the pharma industry if you look at the biotech industry or if you look at the IT industry or IT it has been a booming industry for all these three decades. So in this industry people had a certain capacities of the bargaining power because there was a strong backup or strong labor laws that basically bond bar people from being reduced at any point of time but now this bargaining capacity is going to come down because there is no restriction on the employers at all the employers are working out back doors to hit at the bargaining capacity for instance when they retrenched all the work posts who were 10 plus years of experience if there would have been no rapid increase in digital consumption most of the people who have been retrenched lacks of people have been retrenched in the period since 2016 actually went back into the industry with by accepting lower wages from what they were getting earlier. So this is a way in which the employers figured out a way that they fire people and hire people back and a role that was I would not want to name the name of the company because they have been taking people back but we have seen that for the same roles when companies were paying close to 1.5 lakhs of rupees per month people were retrenched and they basically recruited again with the wages which were almost one third or 50% of what they were paying earlier because this is a very peculiar situation because there exists a reserve army of labor and you have already put there is already precariousness that is creeping into the lives of the people working in the new generation industries because the EMI the average EMI which every individual has to pay be it is car loan be it is house loan or be it is school kids fees or be it hospitalization charges and basic groceries and everything put together you see the entire real estate boom or the apartments that have been constructed everybody goes for a loan the basic EMI's are coming to be somewhere around 50 to 55 thousand rupees this is the basic income that one would be needing so the companies have figured out a new ways of restructuring the entire wages in the companies even when the earlier losses existed but now the organization of the fight for some of those things did not really sharpen in the new generation industries because as a consequence of the covid pandemic these industries again started to boom all the new new new generation industries but if something odd happens or if there is something that really affects these industries is going to come in place it's going to be very the precariousness is actually going to creep in back and it's going to put all the people even more vulnerable because we don't have the protection of the earlier loss where we can stand and basically fight back so what is the way out the way forward is these laws that have been passed on need to be amended we are demanding that these laws that have that are there in place they need to be amended they need to be amended or we need to have new laws in place of these things these laws where the rights of the people are protected and I think we have already started campaigns around