By Raju Prabath Lankaloka
The IT-BPM sector has been considered one of the growing sectors in Sri Lanka. They claim that, during the past decade, the IT-BPM industry in Sri Lanka has seen substantial expansion and had some of the strongest growth among all export sectors. According to them, over the last 10 years, the industry has grown more than 300%, reaching US$1.2 billion in revenue, recruiting more than 80,000 professionals and contributing 12% of Sri Lankan service exports. Sri Lanka Association for Software Services Companies (SLASSCOM) foresees the industry achieving US$5 billion in exports by 2022, creating 200,000 direct jobs and launching 1,000 start-ups.
With the figures the industry put out, one may think that the employees of that sector are well off, with fantastic working conditions and very decent wages. But the recent incident of a youth employed in that sector died by committing suicide, allegedly due to work pressure and stress has shown that the reality is totally different. Therefore, it is worth diving deep in to understand what is at cost.
It is true that this sector attracts most of the young skilled workers, especially school leavers and fresh graduates from the IT sector. The SLASSCOM State of the industry report mentions “Sri Lanka has a growing youth population with over 200,000 students annually completing secondary education with the potential to join the workforce”. As of 2019, the IT-BPM industry in Sri Lanka employed over 113,000 persons and generated US$ 1.5 Bn in revenue. However, most of its workers are recruited either on a contract basis or as interns. Therefore, most of the companies which offer these services do not have a permeant workforce. Hence the minimum salaries of these workers are quite low.
In Sri Lanka, this sector is a super exploitative sector. A spectrum of mechanisms has been implemented almost in every company in this sector to maximize the exploitation of young workers. Many parameters are in place to monitor the performances of the workers and the performances are monitored based on both quantitative and qualitative targets. Most companies have key performance indicators setting up the individual and team targets which are evaluated periodically. As the workers are given a low salary, they are offered a commission according to the achievements of their KPIs. However, achieving the KPIs is an impossible task. The targets set by the companies are unrealistic and the responsibility to achieve the targets is always put as the responsibility of the worker.
This creates the working environment within these companies is immensely competitive. Competition is created among peers where it is ingrained, taught and practiced by workers from day one of their jobs. You would see people in those companies having a snack and a big bottle of water at their desks, staring at their monitors, submerged deeply, trying to do their best to catch up on the tasks which are set for them to complete. In a world where we try to have a more human touch to the Artificial intelligence developed, we can witness a set of workers working as robots.
Many of these employers are linked to multinational companies. The big profit giants are outsourcing their work to gain more profit and the workers are paying the price.
Most of the workers in these companies suffer from mental illness, depression, stress anxiety and many more. The growing competition only fuels alienation which detaches workers from each other. With no security over their job or their future, the workers could only try to work hard to be at the mercy of their companies. Hustle more to earn more has become the motto of most workers and the workers are even deprived of basic labour rights such as an 8-hour working day within the IT-BPM industry.
Most of the companies do not pay overtime, though they exploit their workers much more than 8 hours a day; do not pay EPF and ETF; Even if they pay EPF and ETF they are not paid as per the law of the land. Yet the Department of Labour and the government not even blink an eye on those illegal and super exploitive blunders of company owners.
These conditions only got worsened with the COVID-19 pandemic. With the lockdowns, the IT-BPM sector, resumed its operations through Work From Home (WFH). The companies soon found that this working mode is more profitable for them. Even after lifting the movement restrictions imposed due to COVID, these service providers continued to maintain their work through WFH as they largely cut down the expenditure on infrastructure and other essential services like transport, staff facilities, etc which are allocated towards the workers.
When a worker is working in the office space, the company was liable to properly maintain the working space with electricity, water, washrooms and the types of equipment used by the worker. However, within the Work From Home environment, the workers had to bare the expenses of these services which are crucial to continuing their work. On the other hand, workers were asked to stretch their working hours to maintain their production availability even though the worker had to log out from the work due to unavoidable circumstances (such as power cuts, communication failures etc). For example, if the company has a power down the workers were not obliged or required to stretch their working hours to complete the tasks. However, within the WFH conditions, the workers are asked to stretch their working hours to cover the hours lost due to the power cut even though they had no control over it.
Even though the working conditions within the sector are extremely inhuman, the workers are more concerned about saving their job, especially during the crisis situation, they are not questioning their masters. Which is in reality no different to slavery. Also, an illusion that the company is the best place to work has also been created in the minds of the workers. From employee surveys to identify the best places to work, annual awarding ceremonies crowing “GREAT PLACE TO WORK”, training modules and ‘life coaching’ on work-life balance, workers were deluded by the angelic image portrayed by the companies stating that they care. But the reality is far away from it.
The companies organize Corporate Social Responsibility activities, team bonding activities, sporting events, parties and every other event to pretend the workers that the companies are concern of the community and employees. Therefore, the great majority of these workers are mainly taken up in activities which have very little meaning for them; at best, it is tolerable; at worse, a living torment.
In reality, the workers are alienated and made opponents with one another. Any opportunity to truly organise the workers has been obstructed. Trade Unions are discouraged and sometimes even prohibited within these companies (though it is violating even the constitution of the country). Anti-Trade-Union ideologies have also been grilled into the mindset of the workers stating that they are provided with better alternatives – forums with supervisors reporting back to the management on the discussions, skip-level forums to raise the issues with the higher management, the so-called “anonymous reporting mechanism” to Human Resources etc- to raise any issue concerning the work and workplace. Though it pretends that the workers are given an opportunity to voice their issues, the reporting mechanisms have always been placed in a way to carry out the interests of the owners. And their interest is clearly the PROFITS.
Therefore, the recent death of young IT BPM professional cannot be considered just as a ‘suicide’. It is a corporate murder. That is not the only corporate murder committed by this profit hungry system. Every day, every hour, every minute it takes so many victims just for the sake of increasing profits. But this time the victim had the courage to loudly name his murderer.
After that corporate murder media and so-called professionals have started preaching on controlling the stress and depression at work places as if the death occurred due to the fault of the employee. We cannot expect anything more from this capitalist media and there their boot licking professionals. Till this system allows to function more and more corporate murders will take place.
We must stop these corporate murders. Overthrowing this profit hungry system is the only way to achieve that. It is time that we carry our banner to these workers to truly liberate them from these soul-sucking giant profit makers. It is only through the collective strength of the working class, the oppressed and exploited can rise up and take over the commanding heights of the economy.
