US Company Verizon Hires Bouncers, Psychiatrists, Docs To Layoff Hyderabad Employees  

Prakash Pecheti

Hyderabad: An America-based company has resorted to mass layoffs of techies here in the city citing role rationalisation. The US-based company Verizon Data Services India has so far terminated 300-odd employees in what seems to be an unjust manner — by employing bouncers, doctors and psychiatrists during the retrenchment process.

Although no specific reason has been cited by the company over the retrenchment, as many as 300 employees in Hyderabad and 900 from various parts of the country were shown the door, according to reports. The sacked employees are taking to the social media, narrating the injustice meted out to them.

Sridhar, who had been working for the past 12 years with Verizon here in Hyderabad, was called up by his manager on December 12 to have a meeting. To his utter disbelief, the manager straight away asked him to put down his papers or get terminated. Sridhar was not even given time to know the reason behind the sacking.

Ramakrishna, who has 11 years of experience in the IT field, too was shown the door in similar way.

Meanwhile, a conciliation meeting between the sacked employees and Verizon authorities will be held on December 21. Seven employees who were terminated by the company, approached Joint Commissioner of Labour, Rangareddy district, Chandra Sekhar.

Another heart-wrenching incident came to light when a woman employee, who was into her third month of pregnancy, was asked to resign. A software tester, Kavitha Kumari, pleaded with the management and broke down before the HR urging them to review their decision as she could not get maternity leave without a year's experience. Ironically, her boss asked her if she needed a doctor. Now, Kavitha joined several other employees to lodge a complaint with the Telangana Labour Commission.

Meanwhile, IT experts opined that the software companies are using various terms like role rationalisation and skill upgradation to carry out layoffs. Basically, companies come out with various reasons such as avoiding redundancy or re-skillling the company when it decides to sack employees.

"The layoffs would come under Industrial Disputes Act and Shops and Establishments Act. As many as 2,000 techies have filed petitions in Labour Commission. The Forum For IT is fighting similar cases in the High Court and in the Labour court. Performance can never be an indicator for terminating an employee," said Kiran Chandra, an employee.