Following concerns raised by a group of IT sector employees over a clause in the employment contract of India’s second largest software company Infosys, the Ministry of Labour & Employment has called representatives of the company as well as the employees’ union to hold a joint discussion on the issue. In the letter addressed to Krish Shankar, Infosys’ Group Head-Human Resources and Harpreet Singh Saluja, President, Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), the Office of the Chief Labour Commissioner noted: “This is with reference to the complaint from President, NITES against the management of Infosys Ltd in respect of non-compete agreement clause whereby the employees terminated from employment from Infosys for any reason have been restricted in respect of their future employment. The aforesaid clause has been alleged to be unethical and illegal by the complainant”. It added that a joint discussion will be held on the issue on Thursday. The Indian Express has reviewed a copy of this letter. An e-mail query sent to Infosys seeking comments did not elicit a response. Last week, NITES wrote to the ministries of labour, and corporate affairs seeking intervention on a non-compete clause in the contract of Infosys employees, which restricted staffers from joining some of its competitors. NITES said that Infosys was enforcing this non-compete clause says that after resigning, an Infosys employee cannot work, for a period of six months, with one of the named rival companies on a client he or she would have serviced in the preceding 12 months before quitting. Among the rival companies named in the employment contract are TCS, Accenture, IBM, Cognizant and Wipro for Infosys’ software services wing. For the companies business processing management (BPM) wing, the named competitors in the employment pact are Tech Mahindra, Genpact, WNS, TCS, Accenture, IBM, Cognizant, Wipro and HCL. At the time, Infosys had said that such a non-compete clause is a “standard business practice” in employment contracts. “It is standard business practice in many parts of the world for employment contracts to include controls of reasonable scope and duration to protect confidentiality of information, customer connection and other legitimate business interests. These are fully disclosed to all job aspirants before they decide to join Infosys, and do not have the effect of preventing employees from joining other organisations for career growth and aspirations,” the company had said in a statement on April 20.
