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A platform to unite the Workers of IT & ITeS Sector

Picture taken during the final session of the 2 day IT/ITeS conference, Chennai. 17th and 18th June 2017

Forum for IT – F.I.T.E was born on 29th December 2014. When TCS attempted illegal terminations of 25,000 of its employees, F.I.T.E was launched in Chennai as a means to stand against it. F.I.T.E became a reality because of the efforts of Young Tamil Nadu Movement, a politically conscious group of workers from IT and other sectors. IT workers from Chennai travelled across the country to various cities such as Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Delhi, Kochi and Bhubaneswar to meet and organize the affected TCS employees. Because of aggressive social media campaign, filing of writ petitions and labor disputes and on-ground protests, ‘TCS layoffs’ was intervened and successfully halted.
What actually started as a resistance against layoffs at TCS, later progressed into fight against various malpractices indulged by the managements. From the inception of F.I.T.E till date, we have been fighting against forceful resignations, long working hours, sudden company shutdowns, gender discriminations, blackmail of employee blacklisting, confiscation of original documents, pending salaries, bonus disputes etc. We have been fighting court cases against various IT/ITeS majors and start-ups for violation of laws of the land. We had been conducting legal sessions to the employees across various chapters since majority of the employees are unaware of the workplace rights conferred upon them. Apart from legal struggles, hundreds of employees organize under F.I.T.E to register their protest against illegal/forceful terminations by participating in Human Chains, Black Gag protests, social media campaigns etc. IT workers gathered in the first ever two day All India IT Workers’ conference in Chennai in June, 2017 organized by Forum for IT Employees (F.I.T.E) and come up with resolutions and demands to address the IT workers problems with the help of trade unionists, legal experts and academicians.
IT industry had been a fantasy to middle class people. This Industry employs 40 lakhs employees directly also generates crores of employment indirectly. When the benefits enjoyed by IT managements include Tax exemption, low cost land etc, it sorrowfully includes disregard of labor laws as well. The export market and technology driven IT industry is being the challenging work environment for lakhs and lakhs of our IT Workers. With advanced disruptive technologies (that replaces human labor) taking over the technology business and the global economic crisis and socio, political changes across the globe, the issues faced by workers of IT/ITeS sector are only likely to become worse.
The corporates built the culture among our IT workers which made us to believe our career growth is dependent on our individual’s capability irrespective of external conditions. But the truth is that capitalist mode of production can survive only with the help of profit oriented business model. To increase profit, they will engage us in any sort of in inhuman exploitative working conditions and throw away like sugarcane junk after squeezing us as cheap labor forces for several years.
While the corporates unionize themselves to safeguard their profit oriented business interest, we are not allowed to uphold our basic constitutional right of unionization. Our employment is the only means of our livelihood. So, our workers’ unity will help to strengthen us in front of the gigantic corporates to fight against all the exploitative conditions of our workplaces.
United we are strong. United we can safeguard our rights. Join FITE.