These days one is constantly made aware by many corporate about how socially conscious they are and how their charitable actions are helping thousands come out of poverty and how they are furthering various causes through their CSR activities. Such lofty pronouncements would make a bystander believe that Indian corporates are paragons of virtues and they leave no stone unturned to make the society a better place to live in. A cursory observation of the two sectors, however, raises serious doubts about the gap between precept and practice. Through this note I dare anyone to challenge these observations. Let me first take the example of the apparel export business and its CSR activities. Every month scores of training agencies sponsored either by NSDC or MoRD churn out Sewing Machine Operators (SMOs). They are told that their lives are now going to change for good and that prosperity and affluence will take their families out of the poverty trap. If they perform well they can aspire to become supervisors and even managers in no time. So, with a gleam in their eyes, they enter the garment factories. What happens then is nothing short of a nightmare. Almost all factory owners have a standard method to hoodwink the buyers and comply with their stringent requirements. They set up a five-star ‘model’ unit. Buyers are often taken there for inspection. This unit keeps all the records clean. Overtime is paid on time and is calculated correctly. Provident Fund records and ESI records are squeaky clean. But at the same time, the owners also have several ‘sheds’ where actual production happens unauthorizedly. Here the software to calculate the Overtime is tweaked so that only single overtime is paid while it is shown that double is paid. Provident Fund is not paid. Whenever a wage hike is announced only the difference between the actual wage and the revised minimum wage is paid. The workers who come from neighbouring states are forced to live in the shanties owned by the local land mafia. Rampant sexual exploitation happens in the factory where the lure of overtime is used as a tool. Far from having a living wage the minimum wage catches the worker in a spiral from which he never recovers. By default, almost all the workers are anaemic and live a pathetic life. The rage of living such an inhuman life often manifests in very violent forms. What about the owners? Well, they live in a lap of luxury owning dozens of high-end cars, living in farmhouses and giving lectures in seminars organised by FICCI or CII patting how they are contributing to their social responsibility! Ministries involved in skill development and agencies imparting training quote statistics about how many have been trained and placed. It’s a heart-wrenching story but never brought out due to wasted interests.
What happens in a low-tech field such as apparel stitching should not happen in a high-tech industry like IT. That’s what common sense tells us. But alas here the same story in a modified form gets repeated. Trained human resource managers who have no clue about HR behave in an inhuman way treating the resource as if they are commodities. A couple of years back a sacked programmer taped his conversation with his HR manager who gave him 24 hours’ notice to quit. If he does not agree then he is subjected to several forms of psychological torture. I must point out that this is not a recent phenomenon. In the 80s and 90’s some HR managers had developed a specialisation in locating part passenger part cargo airlines which would offer the cheapest fare to overseas destinations and the flights would be arranged in such a way that the programmer would reach the destination by Sunday midnight so that he can start working on Monday morning to make him ’billable’. One of my close acquaintances who worked for one of the largest IT companies in the 80s told me a harrowing tale. He was booked on a flight to London but was briefed about this only a day prior to his departure. He was not told who is the client or which is the location in UK. This was peak winter but he was not briefed. They booked him in Aeroflot. He was told that a B&B arrangement has been made for him and a car will pick him up from the airport. When he landed in Heathrow no one was there to receive him. He took a cab and went to the B&B facility where he was told that there is no reservation made out for him. Then another shock awaited him. He was told that he needs to take a tube and reach the location which is six hours away. Thus, after reaching the destination station which was a village he could not get any transport. The roads were slippery with ice and he had only canvas shoes. To cut the story short when finally, he reached the office the manager had a look at him and asked if he had been sick. His only response was trickling tears. Come to 2018 and you have just to listen to the harrowing tales of the coders who are on the bench either in India or overseas.
In my view the promoters and owners of a business have to have Individual Conscience and Individual Social Responsibility only then does the talk of Corporate Social responsibility make sense. But that is a tall order in India. So, let the companies gloat over their CSR and their commitment to skill development and let the concerned agencies have press conferences about meeting their targets of skill development.
