Ms. Parimala, President, Forum for IT Employees (F.I.T.E) – Tamil Nadu had a meeting with Mrs. Santhi, Deputy Commissioner for Labour (DCL-2) yesterday (5/12/2017) at DMS, Chennai regarding the inquiry on the death of TCS employee Moses Ranjan Raja. She paid kind attention to the issue and she informed us that she had already ordered for an inquiry witnessing the news spread in the media based on our press release. Labor Inspector of Kanchipuram District had inspected TCS Siruseri campus yesterday (5/12/2017) and would submit a report to the DCL.
We explained the poor working conditions and lack of proper medical care facility which lead to the deaths of TCS employee Moses and Infosys employee Ilaiyaraja. We insisted the strong need to conduct inquiry on Ilaiyaraja’s mysterious death although it had happened few months back.
Most of the IT companies do not have The Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act implemented on their campuses and we requested the DCL to inquire the implementation of Standing Orders at TCS. The DCL agreed to conducting the inquiries and also sharing with us the copies of the reports.
- Screenshot of the letter handed over to the DCL – Page 1
- Screenshot of the letter handed over to the DCL – Page 2
The below is the text of the letter handed over to the DCL,
05.12.2017
To,
The Deputy Commissioner of Labour II,
DMS, Teynampet, Chennai
Respected Sir/Madam,
Sub : Inquiry into the death of TCS employee Moses Rajan – Reg
Mr. Moses Ranjan (41) , Delivery Manager at Tata Consultancy Services, Siruseri campus met sudden death while on work at 11pm on 27/11/2017. On the fateful night, Moses was involved in a conference call with the on-site team in the U.S. Since he became silent during the course of the call, the on-site team informed to an offshore team mate to reach out to Moses. When he reached the desk of Moses, he witnessed Moses lying on the ground suffering from fits. Baffled by the scene, the team mate tried his best to recover Moses from fits and had also immediately alerted the security guards. Meanwhile Moses had fainted and also suffered fits for the second time. The ambulance had reached the tower after 15 minutes of all these happenings. With the help of security guards Moses was boarded on to the ambulance. There was no doctor or nurse available in the ambulance to provide necessary first aid to Moses or to check his pulses and blood pressure. Since there was nobody else to accompany Moses to the hospital, the team mate had accompanied Moses in the ambulance. Unfortunately, Moses was declared ‘brought dead’ at the Chettinad Hospital.
Similarly Ilaiyaraja, 30year old employee of Infosys, Mahindra city campus present on the outskirts of Chennai, was found dead and naked near the office rest room bleeding from nose and mouth on Tuesday (30-05-2017) night. There has been no through investigation on this mysterious death with regard to working conditions which lead to serious health issues. Family members had raised allegations against Infosys management that they had completed with post mortem of Ilaiyaraja dead body with the help of police without informing them and their questions were not answered properly by Infosys management. There is a strong need to conduct a thorough investigation on Ilaiyaraja’s mysterious death also.
FITE while interaction with Moses Ranjan Raj family members and colleagues understood that Mr. Moses Ranjan was working from 11am to 12 midnight due to which he was subject to immense work pressure. Also we heard from TCS Siruseri Employees that the emergency medical care facility and ambulance facilities are not sufficient.
In IT industry there is no proper study on serious health issues arising out of working conditions (occupational health hazards) nor there has been any holistic plan implemented to safeguard the health of IT sector employees. Already the IT companies operate with complete autonomy and in seclusion. What happens inside the campus starting from illegal terminations, sexual harassments and murders is always kept as dark secrets so that their brand image remains unscathed.
On behalf of Forum for IT Employees (F.I.T.E)-Tamilnadu, we request for an Inspection from Labour Dept, to investigate specifically the working hours logged by Mr. Moses Ranjan in the recent few weeks before death and also the kind of first aid provided in the TCS Siruseri campus. Also request for an detailed study on Occupational health hazards in IT/ITES industry and provide necessary guidelines from the Labour department to safeguard the lives of workers. As we have come to know that most of IT companies do not have approved Standing Orders, kindly inquire on the Standing Order of TCS company and provide us a copy.
Parimala,
President,
Forum for IT Employees – Tamilnadu
Chennai
9840713315
1 Comment
muthu December 13, 2017 at 10:43 pm
TCS (esp. the crazy management in siruseri TCS) which earns crores and crores every quarter like it is greed for money all the time. they could find time and spend money to build an utter useless extravagant helipad, but they couldnt fund emergency medicare? despite there are more people forced to stay at nights for onsite support. there is issue on our side too. why to let the companies to lick our face when we can stop them by saying no. we have to develop the mindset to say to the managers that offshore means offshore and there is no need to convert offshore timings to onsite. i have been professing this with every manager i worked for and got my name damaged. being jobless, i still turned down a very good offer because they forced the offshore to work from 2pm to 10pm. our evenings are important too and this should be told to the managers and the companies.