India's Information Technology major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is expected to have a tough time when it goes for trial this week. The issue is related to the alleged racial discrimination claimed by the US workers who lost their jobs at TCS offices across America because they hadn't been assigned to any of its clients.
The Mumbai-based company would have to offer a good reason to the American jury for why the engineers employed at its US operations are 13 times as likely to be sacked if they're not South Asian.
The trial will resurrect the issue of work-visa programs which the Indian IT companies have been using to bring overseas workers to the US, a practice President Donald Trump has heavily criticised. In a push to "Make America Great Again", the Trump administration has been demanding the Indian IT companies including TCS, Infosys, and others to hire more Americans on US soil.
However, TCS has rubbished any claims of unlawful bias in its U.S. operations and have submitted to the court that the Caucasian American who has filed the lawsuit was removed from one of its projects and ultimately fired from the company over "performance concerns" not because of his race or ethnicity. Bloomberg reported that TCS is confident of putting up a strong case in the court and eventually win.
One of the company spokespersons said that "our success is based on our ability to provide the best talent available, both in the US and globally, based purely on the individual's specialized experience, skills and fit for each client's specific needs. TCS also strictly adheres to all federal and state equal employment opportunity laws and regulations."
According to the complaint, the race and national origin not being a factor in TCS's termination decisions are less than one in a billion. The statistical shreds of evidence show that TCS sacked 12.6 per cent of its non-South Asian workers on the American soil, as against less than 1 per cent of its South Asian employees. Interestingly, the company was adjourned as a top employer in North America, the lawsuit tells a different story.
