In a joint statement on Sunday, October 12, India’s major IT employee unions accused Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) of forcing thousands of its employees out of their jobs through “cruel and illegal methods”.

The joint statement issued by the Karnataka State IT/ITES Employees Union (KITU), the Association of IT Employees (AITE)-Kerala and the Union of IT and ITES Employees (UNITE)-Tamil Nadu claimed that TCS laid off over 38,000 of its employees in one single quarter through mostly illegal methods.

The TCS HR head had claimed that only 6,000 employees were laid off through “involuntary attrition” in the last quarter, implying that the other 32,000 left the company voluntarily.

Unions questioned the number but, nevertheless, called the acknowledgment a bold admittance of illegality.

TCS’ “public acknowledgment of ‘involuntary attrition-which is, in reality, forced resignations-reveals not just a failure of ethics but a dangerous confidence that no authority will hold the company accountable. TCS has now crossed from corporate arrogance into open contempt for Indian labor law” said KITU in a statement on Monday.

TCS is India’s largest software company with over 60,000 employees worldwide and over USD 31 billion in revenue in 2025. It had previously announced that it will lay off around 12,000 employees by the end of the year who would be unfit to be placed after its “reskilling and redeployment” process.

Unions have opposed the TCS layoff plan, calling it unethical. They have claimed that the layoff of thousands of TCS employees is being carried out despite the company making millions of dollars in profit.

The “massive revenue, earned in a single quarter, makes the subsequent mass termination and coercion of employees particularly egregious,” their statement reads.

The unions have underlined the illegality of the process as well, calling it a violation of India’s Industrial Dispute Act (IDA).

As per the IDA adopted in 1947, any company with more than 100 employees is required to take prior approval from the government before carrying out mass layoffs or retrenchments. Such retrenchments are only allowed for specific reasons and under conditions clearly stated in the IDA.

Read More: Worker resistance stops Karnataka government’s plan to increase IT work hours

Cruel and illegal methods

The unions claimed that TCS management has used the most “cruel and illegal methods” in the history of the IT industry in the country to force thousands of its employees, who worked for the company for years, out.

The unions claimed that some of the affected employees approached them and narrated their treatment by management. According to the affected employees, management first forced them out of their existing projects. They were left without work and asked to hunt for new projects for the company without any assistance from HR. Failure to get a project meant losing the job.

Some of the employees claimed that they were asked to report to work even while sick. Some female employees claimed they were asked to report to work while they were on maternity leave.

The employees who refused to resign even after all this were threatened with consequences on their future employment opportunities, the statement claimed.

Unions have also accused that in many cases the TCS management failed to uphold the understanding of giving three months “severance package” to the affected employees.

Unions demanded the governments immediately intervene to uphold the law of the land and protect the interests of the thousands of professionals. They called on other IT employees to join the future actions against the company’s move.

“The lack of effective oversight and enforcement has emboldened companies to disregard workers’ rights, and it is imperative that governments take concrete actions to protect the rights and livelihoods of workers by regulating these companies immediately,” the joint statement reads.

On the basis of evidence presented by some of the affected employees, KITU has already raised an industrial dispute against the TCS regarding illegal terminations and forced resignations. The case is in the conciliation stage, the second meeting of which is scheduled to be held on Wednesday.

The post India’s largest software company has forced thousands of employees to quit, unions allege appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via this RSS feed