Three US citizens from two different companies have sued Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), alleging discrimination based on race and national origin, and are seeking exemplary and punitive damages, in the latest case to bedevil India’s largest IT outsourcing company.
The complaint filed by Darryl Stacy, Donald Stephen Bradley and Hesham Hafez in the District Court of New Jersey late last month alleged that TCS prefers to bring in employees on visas even when there are trained US citizens and further discriminates when it hires locally by preferring Indians and South Asians.
This is the latest of a number of lawsuits to be filed against India’s largest IT outsourcing company and its peers including Infosys and HCL Technologies in the US, and comes at a sensitive time.
US President Donald Trump is a vocal opponent of immigration to his country. He has increased scrutiny on issuance of H1-B visas and his administration is in the process of withdrawing an Obama era policy that allowed spouses of H1-B visa workers to work in the US.
“TCS’ president for North America Surya Kant and vice president and head of human resources Narasimhan Srinivasan devised and implemented a nationwide ‘leadership directive’ to utilise TCS’s visa-ready South Asian employees (also known as ‘expats’) to the ‘maximum extent’ when filling US positions,” stated the complaint.
Stacy and Bradley worked for Southern California Edison, the primary electricity supply company in southern California, while Hafez worked at Royal Bank of Scotland in Connecticut. They are represented by Kotchen & Low, the firm that is also representing some other employees of Southern California Edison in a class-action lawsuit against TCS related to discrimination in hiring. That case is being heard in the Northern District of California.
While the lawsuits are ongoing, TCS and other Indian IT companies are facing tremendous pressure over hiring locally in the US.
Infosys and HCL Technologies are both facing lawsuits over discrimination of US citizens by the same law firm.
