The last time around we had layoffs it was after the Internet bubble burst in 2000. Pink slips – both the term as well as the phenomenon – were relatively new to India. Since it was restricted to the IT space, most people were mostly amused, not really affected, and the media had creative headlines to report what was to them a new thing.
Talk of pink slips now is far less sexy. It seems real and to some, frightening. I have somehow taken on the burden of allaying fears, not to mention outright paranoia, and will offer some comforting words in these troubled times. Fear not, we are no closer to allowing all the big, bad corporates to send us home. Our corporates are quite unused to this task of downsizing and can be downright clumsy in their attempts. And after all, what are politicians for, if not to ease our pain in grave crises like these, especially when elections are round the corner?
Look at what happened to privately-owned Jet Airways, or the government-owned Air India.
Jet’s management was particularly naïve, or maybe greedy, to try it days after the airlines went to the government with a begging bowl to be bailed out of the present crisis. Surely enough, Chairman Naresh Goyal bowed quickly when greeted with howls of protest by the airline’s threatened staff, mostly air hostesses, and probably reminded by politicians including one RajThackeray of the consequences. Also, it probably dawned on Goyal that the gains from any government concessions in terms of loans, deferred loans or outright duty cuts would be much larger than savings from retrenching 1,900 employees.
In the case of Air India, its boss was roundly chastised for suggesting forcing thousands of its employees to go on unpaid leave for up to five years, again a pretty undiplomatic, ham-handed initiative by an overzealous chief executive. With elections round the corner, which party or politician would want to be associated with something like that? So, you have even Oil Minister Murli Deora, who should have little to do with the running of the airline, venting his fury against Air India’s chairman and managing director, Raghu Menon.
Most of you and I am hoping I will never really to worry about losing our jobs. Having said that, employees of multinational corporations and those at IT companies should and do feel threatened. Most have liberal contracts that can be terminated and since the numbers of thoseaffected are small, ranging to a few hundred at best, you can be sure there is going to be no outcry of the sort we had when Jet’s air hostesses marched on the streets of Mumbai wearing their airline uniforms.