TCS is being sued in the US for alleged discriminatory hiring practices and violating regulations
Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest software exporter, has been sued by one of its former employees, who claims that the IT firm discriminates against non-South Asian and non-Indian applicants and employees. TCS has a systematic pattern of IT discrimination against non-South Asian and non-Indian applicants and employees and this policy is implemented top-down at the company.
This is not the first time the Indian software company has faced such a lawsuit. A similar suit was filed in 2015, and the company prevailed in 2018. The jury determined that TCS did not have a “pattern or practice” of discrimination against non-South Asian workers at the time. The complainant, Shawn Katz, worked for the company for nine years before being let go. On December 7, this case was filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. A class action lawsuit is a group of people who have suffered the same or similar injury; however, Katz claims that the exact number of members in this proposed class action lawsuit is unknown and can be determined using TCS records.
Katz claimed that despite meeting promotion criteria for several years in a row, he was never promoted during his nine-year tenure at the company. He goes on to say that despite being recommended for promotion by both managers and client companies, he was demoted to the bench and then fired. During his benching, he claimed that TCS failed to provide “meaningful assistance.” According to the lawsuit he filed, while only 12-13 percent of the US Information Technology industry is South Asian, TCS’ US workforce is South Asian and “is primarily composed of non-citizens from India who are in the U.S. on work visas.”
It goes on to say that this is grossly disproportionate and the result of the company’s employment discrimination against non-South Asian or Indian people. “TCS’s discrimination is systemic and ongoing, affecting non-South Asians and non-Indians throughout the company, as well as applicants, who are disfavored in TCS’s hiring, staffing, promotion, and termination/retention decisions,” according to the complaint. The Americas account for more than half of TCS’s revenue.
Hiring discrimination
According to the lawsuit, when TCS receives a contract from a US client, it is required to fill open positions as soon as possible or risk losing the project, and TCS fills open US positions with both existing employees and new applicants. Existing employees include both native-born Americans and those on work visas. Existing TCS employees and external candidates must apply for open positions in the United States. According to the lawsuit,
once their time on a project is up, they are demoted to the bench and must look for new jobs within the company. They, like any other external candidate, must go through an application and interview process. “During this time, employees are encouraged to apply directly to open positions on TCS’s internal portal and to collaborate with TCS’s staffing group, the Resource Management Group (“RMG”), to find open positions.” “If an employee remains on the bench for an extended period of time and is unable to find a new job, TCS terminates his or her employment,” according to the lawsuit.
Under US law, a hiring decision cannot be based on a person’s race or national origin, but the complaint claims that both TCS talent acquisition and the third-party vendors the company uses have been directed to attract Indian candidates. According to the lawsuit, as a result of this discriminatory practice, it hires a disproportionately high percentage of South Asians and Indians, and non-Indian and non-South Asian candidates are frequently passed over for open positions and not hired.
