Tata
Consultancy Services, the country's largest software company, may sack
as many as 290 employees at its Finland office, a move that the workers
say is an attempt to shift jobs to India.
TCS,
which has a registered office in Helsinki and has an employee strength
of about 800 in Finland, is currently in negotiations with the employee
representatives (ERs) over the move to cut jobs.
The
Union of Professional Engineers in Finland (UIL) claimed that the jobs
at stake were about 412, a figure which TCS said was inaccurate.
"If
I remember... 412, I believe is the correct number," UIL Director
(Collective Bargaining) Ismo Kokko told PTI when asked about the number
of jobs at stake in TCS.
When contacted, a TCS
spokesperson said: "The maximum number of roles affected is 290 and not
the numbers you have mentioned, which are completely inaccurate."
Lay-offs may be less than even 290, some sources privy to TCS management thinking said.
In
April this year, over 160 employees at the Finland offices of TCS
staged a walkout protesting against job cuts. These employees were
outsourced by Nokia to TCS in March. The employees are based in Espoo,
Salo, Tampere and Oulu.
"On April 25, there was
a spontaneous walk-out from all TCS offices located in Nokia premises
in Finland. People felt angry and betrayed over the fact that it only
took TCS seven weeks to show their true colours. Many people felt that
Nokia simply outsourced its lay-offs and dirty work to TCS," sources
closely following the developments revealed.
Nokia
made the announcement related to the outsourcing of employees in
January and the total number of Nokia employees to be transferred was
820 of which about 560 were to go to TCS and 230 to HCL, Kokko said.
Separately, Nokia also cut jobs at its IT centre by up to 300 employees.
Kokko
said negotiations with employee representatives (ERs) are currently
going on and will conclude soon, which was also confirmed by sources,
who wished not to be quoted.
"TCS is going
through the official employee negotiation process with the ERs as
required by Finnish law. The minimum negotiation time is six weeks and
the meetings are scheduled to end soon. After that, TCS has to inform
their final plans, including how many people they plan to lay off," they
added.
The lay-off comes amidst TCS announcing plans to hire over 45 000 people globally this year, sources said.
Kokko claimed that the lay-offs are not justified as the work has not reduced.
"We
want all the people to keep their jobs. They were outsourced only a
couple of months ago and the work that they are doing for Nokia has not
reduced at all," he said.
He, however, added:
"We are afraid that jobs and work will be moved outside Finland
somewhere may be to India or may be to another country. That's our main
concern."
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