Byju’s forcing employees to resign, claims KITU

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Karnataka State IT/ ITeS Employe e s Union (KITU) has condemned the layoffs by tech giant Byju’s and called it illegal. The union has also said that an employee has all the legal right to refuse to sign the resignation.

“Massive retrenchments happening in Byju’s, in which hundreds of employees made to forcefully resign from the company. KITU extends all support to the affected employees in Byju’s and urges the management to respect the law of the land and reinstate all retrenched employees with immediate effect.

KITU calls upon all the IT/ITeS employees to come forward in solidarity with the employees of Byju’s and against the inhuman practice of forced resignation,” said the KITU statement. Employees in the company are also alleging that they are being made to resign. Some have also alleged that these layoffs have been happening since last year.

“A week ago my manager called me and said that the company might have to let me go because of my bad performance. I know that my performance has been fairly good. This feels like a corporate tactic where they don’t want to say that they are laying off employees, so they say that there is a performance issue,” said Shivam (name changed on request).

He also added that there is panic among employees regarding the layoffs and people are worried about finding alternate job options. One of the company employees, Saad, who left the company a year ago, said that this is not a recent problem and the layoffs have been happening for a year. “It is far more visible now because it is happening in large numbers, but people actually started leaving since last year.

It was just not very noticeable,” he said. The KITU has also said that the Industrial Disputes Act, Companies that employs more than 100 employees need to obtain approval from the Government in order to execute layoffs/retrenchments.

Retrenchments are permitted only for specific reasons and under certain regulations defined in the Industrial Disputes Act. KITU has warned Byju’s that as per the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 section 2(ra), unfair labour practices, it is an offence on the part of an employer to force an employee to resign.