'They sell such ideas in the name of 'national interest'.'
'What national interest are they talking about?'
'There is no national interest in this. The only interest that is there is their profit.'
How many hours should a person work in a day, in a week?
70 hours as suggested by N R Narayana Murthy, co-founder, Infosys?
90 hours as desired by L&T Chairman S N Subrahmanyan?
Or 45 hours?
"Employers don't care whether a person has a life outside work or not. It is not their concern. Their only concern is their profit," Suhas Adiga, general secretary, Karnataka IT Union, tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier.
Soon after the L&T chairman's controversial comments to his employees went viral, KITU posted on X: 'We are not ready to die for your profits.'. The post further said that the call for 90 hours of work 'reveals nothing but the insatiable thirst of these capitalists for profit through the ruthless and inhuman exploitation of the Indian working class.'
Do you think a ruthless and inhuman exploitation of workers is really happening in India?
A study titled Burying the Burnout: Decoding the Health Challenges of India's Tech Geniuses by Onsurity, a leading employee healthcare platform, in collaboration with the Knowledge Chamber of Commerce and Industry, exposed a shocking reality.
The study found that employees working in the IT and ITES industry were working around 52.5 hours in a week as against the national average of 47.7 hours while it should not be more than 45 hours.
It also found that 43% of Indian tech professionals suffer from work-related mental and physical health issues like acidity, back and neck pain, muscle stiffness, Vitamin D deficiency, eyesight problems, weight gain, and frequent headaches.
While 55% of the employees suffer from physical issues, almost half (45%) suffer from mental health issues like stress, anxiety, and depression.
Another shocking revelation was that 26% experience sleep disturbances, with 51% get an average of 5.5 to 6 hours of sleep every day.
Also, 74% of tech professionals felt that they were forced to sacrifice family time and important celebrations because they were asked to attend to work by the managers even after the working hours were over.
This is what Indian employees are facing on the work front.
Many describe the working atmosphere in Indian IT companies as toxic and high-pressure...
Is that not what this study depicts?
If 45% -- almost half -- of the workforce suffer from physical and mental health issues, is it not toxic?
It is already known that work-life balance is a myth in the IT industry.
Why is the workplace more toxic in the IT industry? Is it because unions are not strong?
It is due to multiple reasons and lack of unions is a major reason. We are trying to build a strong union here in Karnataka. We already have 11,000 members in our union.
Recently, the government of Karnataka wanted to increase the working hours to 14 hours daily, which is 12 hours shift and 2 hours overtime.
We, as the union, were able to stop the government from implementing it in the IT industry while the working hours in conventional industries have been amended to 12 hours.
The situation in this industry is such that the employers can make people work even 24 hours if they want. After all, it is in the company's interest that people work long hours.
Is it humanly possible to sustain this kind of long working hours for days, weeks and months?
No. As per the WHO-ILO study done in 2016, long working hours increase the risk of work-related disability, and early death as it increases the risk of stroke and ischemic heart disease.
The study says that people who work 55 or more hours per week have a higher risk of stroke and ischemic heart disease than people who work 35 to 40 hours per week.
According to this study done in 2016, 398,000 people died from stroke and 347,000 from heart disease having worked at least 55 hours a week.
Is this the way the IT and ITES sector treats its employees all over the world?
I think it is more in India. It is only here that employers want the employees to work 70 to 90 hours a week!
Somebody wants 70 hours of work in a week from his employees, somebody else wants 90 hours of work. They think that they can get away from such demands without any consequences.
But there are consequences. We are confident that we can resist such demands.
These capitalists think that they have an upper hand over employees but as a union, we will see to it that they do not have.
About work-life balance, some people argue that it is a Western concept and not for India...
Employers do not care whether the employees live or die. They only want profits in their hands.
They sell such ideas in the name of 'national interest'. What national interest are they talking about? There is no national interest in this. The only interest that is there is their profit.
Only when more and more employees join the union and make unions strong that we can bargain for better working conditions.
We can resist them only through collective bargaining.
IMAGE: Suhas Adiga.
How can long working hours be more productive?
The purpose is to replace an employee saying his productivity has come down. They don't replace an employee with another, what they do is, they assign this person's work to another person.
The intention is to reduce the work force using poor productivity as an excuse.
Do you think most employers feel an employee has no life outside of work?
They don't care whether a person has a life outside work or not. It is not their concern. Their only concern is their profit.
To achieve work-life balance, countries like France, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg and Australia have implemented the 'Right to Disconnect' law so that people can disconnect from work, and not to engage in work-related electronic communications like emails or messages during non-work hours.
We also should have the option to 'Right to Disconnect'.
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com
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