Join club: Red union tells WB IT cos

Kolkata: The CITU (Centre of Indian Trade Unions) President of West Bengal, Shyamal Chakraborty says all is not well on the IT front.

Chakraborty was speaking at the launch of West Bengal IT Services Association, the first dedicated trade union for IT and ITES professionals.

He illustrated the need for a union by naming five ITES firms, which he alleged flouts labour laws at will.

Earlier addressing a Chamber of Commerce, Chakraborty had explained why CITU was forming a platform for collective bargaining.

“If you unilaterally force things on employees, workers will not tolerate. They will somehow get together to resist whether under CITU banner or any other. It might not happen in a year, it might not happen in two years, but it will certainly happen in the long run,” Chakraborty says.

CITU is trying to grab first-mover's advantage. It claims some IT professionals have already come forward to join the union.

Chakraborty promised to present at the launch function some 30 BPO workers who had faced ill treatment at workplace, but quite predictably they refused to come forward because their employers wouldn't have liked it.

IT and ITES companies are not too happy with the formation of the union. Industry bodies like NASSCOM have always held that unions are not needed in the IT sector. But Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's government in West Bengal has not lent an ear to their rejoinders yet.

IT companies are of the view that there is no need at all of a platform for collective bargaining in the industry. But what's so special about them? What makes them different from manufacturing companies? That's the debate that the formation of West Bengal IT Services Association has kicked off, though for the union itself, it's a very small beginning.

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