In March this year, in the heart of India’s Silicon Valley, hundreds of IT employees marched to the Karnataka Labour Commissioner’s office, protesting against the ‘anti-worker practices’ in the industry. Organised under the banner of Karnataka State IT/ITeS Employees Union, they had demanded that their employers in Bengaluru be made answerable to the labour laws of the state, seeking to dispel the myth that the tech sector is defined by big salaries, fancy perks, and stories of meteoric growth. 

In the early 1990s, in line with the spirit of India’s liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation policies, exempting IT and IT enabled services, or ITeS, companies in Karnataka from these labour laws was considered necessary to promote business. This meant the tech firms did not have to adhere to laws such as the The Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, which requires employers to clearly define working conditions like work hours, leave policies, and termination procedures. 

Decades later, the exemptions have left tech workers vulnerable, subject to arbitrary layoffs, forced resignations, exploitative work hours, and discrimination based on gender and caste. 

For as long as the IT industry has existed, efforts have been made to bring together IT workers for collective bargaining. But apart from a few flash-in-the-pan moments like the recent agitation, why has employee unions never caught on as a concept in the tech industry? It’s striking that tech workers in the US, the heart of the capitalist world, have been fervently unionising for decades, while their Indian counterparts largely suffer in silence. Is it merely the fear of reprisals or does it say something about the average techie’s attitude towards unionism?

TV Mohandas Pai, former CFO of Infosys, tells TNM that unionisation in India’s tech sector is “destructive”. In contrast, Sooraj Nidiyanga, secretary of KITU, argues that exempting the IT industry from labour laws is untenable. 

Meanwhile, millions of IT workers remain without bargaining power.

The birth of the golden goose

Bengaluru’s transformation into India’s premiere tech hub did not happen overnight. It stems from decades of strategic planning and educational excellence.

The foundation for this technological journey began in 1909 with the establishment of the Indian Institute of Science, which played a major role in developing the country’s scientific talent pool. This was further strengthened in the 1960s and 1970s with the establishment of major public sector undertakings such as the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and the Bharat Electronics Limited.

“These PSUs and institutions like IISc served as crucial training grounds for engineers, developing skills that would later prove invaluable in the IT sector. On top of that, the famous Bengaluru weather also played a major role in attracting the growth of tech companies,” says Vasanth Raj, a former employee of Bharat Electronics Limited and an alumnus of IISc Bengaluru. 

It was to tap into this potential that, during the 1970s, the government of India developed dedicated technology parks such as the Electronic City and the International Tech Park Bangalore, attracting multi-national companies such as Texas Instruments and IBM. This opened up job opportunities and brought cutting-edge technology to the city, which in turn facilitated the formation of homegrown startups such as Infosys and Wipro in the 1970s and ‘80s, companies that would go on to become global tech giants.