Similarly, as Samrat said:
“My CTC (cost to company) on paper is 10 lakh per annum. Out of which 5 lakh is basic and 5 lakh is variable. But, my company will deduct 50% of the variable though it is not running in any loss. So, I would get (5 50% of 5) 7.5 Lakh per annum, which is in direct violation of the contract I had. But, there is no one to raise the voice.”
While wage-related issues and the degradation of work-life quality became key drivers for tech-worker organising, Bengali tech workers played a critical role in setting up the union, similar to their counterparts from Kerala in the city. This reflects the political temperament inherited from their home states, shaped by the ongoing legacies of parliamentary communism and trade union involvement in provincial politics. Many of our participants had prior engagement with Left-wing political parties and their youth and student fronts from their college days. This involvement shaped their political consciousness, which they carried into their work in the tech sector and their efforts in unionising. However, unions like the All India IT and ITeS Employees’ Union (AIITEU), affiliated with traditional trade union Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), were not region or ethnicity-specific. As our participant Sumit explained, “To fight an multinational corporation (MNC), the struggle must be national. If we protest locally, tech companies will just move operations elsewhere, making the fight pointless.”
Also, for many migrant tech workers, organising was not just about addressing workplace exploitation; it was also a means of building associational culture and power, and creating a sense of community for an otherwise alienated workforce. As Sumit explains:
“When the AIITEU was formed, and we had to campaign or take part in the marches, I felt a certain connection to the city and the space. It seemed like a continuation of the past life. So we proactively found time for Union work, even during office hours too, breaks were used to connect workers with the union members. And since Union was not a thing back then in our trade, there was a thrill doing it. It’s like you are using the time, space and salary provided by the company to organise against them only.”
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D. DHAR ET AL.