A lawsuit has been filed against leading Indian IT company, Infosys for age and sex discrimination.
This lawsuit has been filed by former vice president of talent acquisition, Jill Prejean, who has claimed that Infosys has been treating its employees unfairly.
Lawsuit Filed Against Infosys For Age And Gender Discrimination
Prejean has filed a discrimination and retaliation claims against former Infosys SVP and head of consulting Mark Livingston, and former partners Dan Albright and Jerry Kurtz.
Per Prejean, in a meeting with Livingston, it was revealed that the company was unwilling to recruit women who have children at home, candidates over 50, and additional consultants of Indian origin. Given that the company has its roots in India, this surely is ironic!
Prejean has stated that she informed Livingston that these demands were illegal, to which he reportedly responded by becoming “disturbed and angry.” She was also threatened to be removed from her position if she didn’t cooperate.
For the time being, a New York federal judge has denied Infosys’ motion to dismiss the charges, and the company has been ordered to file an answer to the suit. IBM has been slapped with a lawsuit for alleged discrimination against its employees based on their age.
Reacting on this development, Harpreet Singh Saluja, President, Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate NITES said, “NITES strongly condemns illegal and discriminatory hiring tactics adopted by Infosys. Discrimination against mother’s who want to work with IT companies is not limited to Infosys. This type of malpractices are prevailing in Indian IT sector on large scale. The Indian Government is emphasising on flexibility of workplace, flexibility of time and developing a work from home ecosystem which would increase a lot of opportunities for female workers & would enable them to contribute in nation’s economy. The Indian IT companies tend not to hire female employees who are newly married to avoid providing maternity benefits. Also the companies are reluctant to hire a person above 40 years of age as well. There is an immediate need of provisions to be implemented to stop this toxic culture.”
IBM, HCL Among Companies That Discriminate Against Employees
Infosys is not the only company to face such lawsuits. The American multinational information technology company, IBM, has been making headlines for such controversial issues. There was a time when the CEO of IBM said Indians lacked potential and skill for employment at IBM, then there was a mortifying incident where the organization started firing employees left, right, and center.
The company started handing out depreciating annual performance scores for these employees. The said employees also received evaluations that were worse than that of previous years.
Then there was HCL Technologies, which found a reason not to hire a certain Gregory Handloser for five times. He was considered to be employed with HCL, but the company did not hire him owing to the ‘systematic and continuous discriminatory scheme.’
The lawsuit states that Mr. Handloser discussed a sales position vacancy in the company with a former colleague and associate vice-president at HCL, Ralph Billington. The sales position vacancy was at HCL’s UTC Aerospace Systems, where he was the hiring manager.