NITES calls Infosys gender discrimination ‘toxic culture’

BENGALURU: Condemning illegal and discriminatory hiring tactic adopted by Infosys, the Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) on Friday called it a toxic culture and urged the IT companies to immediately stop it.

“We strongly condemn the illegal and discriminatory hiring tactics adopted by Infosys. Discrimination against mother’s who want to work with IT companies is not limited to Infosys. This type of malpractice is prevailing in the Indian IT sector on a large scale ... There is an immediate need for provisions to be implemented to stop this toxic culture,” NITES President Harpreet Singh Saluja said.

He made these remarks following an US court rejecting the motion of Infosys, seeking dismissal of gender discrimination allegations made by its top-level employee.

Saluja said this discriminatory actions of the company comes in the wake of the Indian government emphasising on flexibility of workplace, time and developing a work from home ecosystem, which would increase a lot of opportunities for female workers and would enable them to contribute in nation’s economy.

After hearing the plea, the judge rejected the motion of Infosys to dismiss the claims of Prejean and asked the defendants to file their answer within 21 days from the date of this opinion and order.