Suit filed in Wisconsin says Infosys prefer workers from South Asia.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Indian IT giant Infosys has been hit with a lawsuit by several former American employees, who claim that higher-ups at the company discriminated against them because of their inability to speak Hindi.
The case, which was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, was filed by Brenda Koehler, Layla Bolton, Gregoe Handloser, and Kelly Parker, all of whom allege that they were discriminated against in some fashion because, essentially, they aren’t Indian.
Specifically, Bolton has alleged that she was harassed during her time with Infosys because she couldn’t speak Hindi, while Bolton says she was denied employment, despite being perfectly qualified, for an applicant who is Bangladeshi. Bolton mentions particular incidents in which she was kept out of conversations in the work-place because they were being spoken in Hindi, and alleges that it was done deliberately to keep her out.
Infosys, meanwhile, has categorically denied all of these claims, saying that they are baseless and without merit. The company has contended that it is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and that it will do whatever it needs to dismiss these charges, which are certainly going to be scrutinized by both IT circles and the US government.
But for the Bangalore-based company, squashing these claims will be easier said than done. Infosys has been at the center of several run-ins with US law over its hiring practices and alleged abuses of US visa laws to hire workers from foreign countries who will accept lower salaries.
Just last year, the company was fined $35 million by the US government to settle a case involving abuse of the B-1 visa program. In addition, Infosys is battling at least a couple of other lawsuits about discriminatory hiring practices, with one filed by Jack Palmer saying that the company’s senior executives repeatedly denied him work in an effort to force him out of the company – just so they could replace him with a cheaper, foreign-hired worker.
The latest lawsuit says that over 90% of Infosys’ US workforce was hired from other countries, mostly South Asian ones. It also says that Infosys’ hiring practices are in direct violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The company is currently in the middle of a corporate re-shuffling, and just named Sandeep Dadlani as the new head of Americas; he has not commented yet.