Software Bonded Labor in India

I've recently spoken to my friends working in software companies in Hyderabad and immediately got nostalgic about my stint with IT industry there. Trends haven't changed much and so haven't work habits.

As known to the world, white collared professionals especially in IT field in India slog for their companies and that has become a part of their lifestyle. Working 12 hours per day is very common and is stamped as professionalism. 10 am -6 pm would be the official working hours but only the start time is fixed. Its an unwritten rule that the time to call it a day should be extended to 3-4 more hours after the "official day" ends.

Quite often HR teams also identify that the resources (employees) need to religiously follow the punctuality..and again as mentioned, time to leave for the day is never considered under this "punctuality".

In one of my earlier experiences, the top management identified the need to increase the working hours and they changed the morning reporting time from 10 am to 9 am. I never understood why they did not change the leaving time instead, from 6:30 am to 7:30 pm. Oh, may be because they are anyways stealing evening time from the employees by moral policing.

If somebody leaves at 6:30 pm, they are looked with contempt or it would be decided that he/she will not last long in that company :) Keeping expectations aside, the employees themselves feel the need to work more to find themselves in the good books of bosses, some by addiction and some to avoid people back home and some of those motivated people who feel they are being paid much more than what they deserve.

But very few realize that they are the victims of bonded labor. This is how it works:

A low profile software company if working on an outsourced project (mostly from US or UK) will be paid $25 per hour. This is a win-win situation for both the parties involved because the outsourcing company needs to pay anything between $40 or $70 per hour if the same project is executed in US.

Now the company which receives $25 per hour will not invest more than $7 - $10 per hour for the project executing (including salaries, resources, amenities, administration etc). So a table profit of $15 per hour to the company is assured whereas $7 as salary to the resource (optimistically assuming an employee gets Rs 50,000 per month as their net take home). So putting down just the figures.

$45 (if project executed in US)

$25 (if project outsourced to India)

$7 (salary paid to the employee)

Who is the winner ? Clearly not the employee ! I'm not recommending equity to employees but the management of those companies should not exploit their human resources in the name of professionalism and productivity.

But an average employee never ceases to get motivated enough to work 12-14 hours per day. And HR team and top management always try their best to optimize employee's "professionalism" by expecting them to work for more than what they are paid for.

And oh yeah ! the very word "overtime payment" is taboo as an offer letter mentions all terms and conditions clearly. By the way, if I remember properly, the offer letter states CTC (cost to company) instead of gross salary. CTC also includes the amount equivalent to provision of free coffee, infrastructure and also washroom facilities, I guess. The net take home after all deductions would be a rude bouncer :)

I never knew and will never know the difference between this kind of white collared bonded labor and agricultural or construction bonded labor. Just that the IT bonded labor are provided plush amenities.

This is a seriously disturbing trend and pure exploitation of talent and knowledge.