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In response to
"Some of these anti-work stories defy description. -- (link)"
by
David
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So CJ works for Tata that does contractor work Eli Lilly, she should be getting at least 100K but she's not even getting half that
Posted by
Remlik (aka Remlik)
Feb 28 '23, 12:15
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'We're hurting good people': Eli Lilly contractor accused of underpaying IT employees
Kristine Phillips
Indianapolis Star
Barry Smith worked for Tata Consultancy Services for nearly a decade, providing IT services for Eli Lilly. The India-based contractor, which employs hundreds of people in Indiana, has been accused by several employees of unfair wage practices, including paying them far less than the average salary in Indiana for high-tech IT jobs.
Barry Smith began working for Tata Consultancy Services in 2014. He started at the company, an India-based tech giant that provides IT services to Eli Lilly and dozens of other American companies, as a systems administrator with 20 years of experience.
But his starting salary was only $40,000 — lower than the average wage of most construction workers and truck drivers.
He said his pay barely went up even after TCS gave him managerial duties several years later. He was responsible for the operation of thousands of computers and instruments in more than 200 laboratories at Lilly’s facilities in Indianapolis and four other cities.
By 2020, TCS was paying Smith about $60,000 for that kind of high-skill, managerial job that paid more than twice statewide.
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Workers told IndyStar that Lilly, regarded as one of the best places to work in the state, failed to address complaints that its foreign contractor is paying hi-tech IT workers wages substantially lower than Indiana averages for comparable positions — even after it was alerted of the problems.
Smith and several current and former TCS employees, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing their jobs, said the low pay has left them feeling abused. Many said they waited for months, even years, for raises and promotions. But they seldom materialized.
The situation has led to complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against TCS, which raked in $25 billion in revenue last year, largely from business it gets from U.S. companies.
Experts say Lilly, as TCS’ client, has control over the matter.
"Economically, Lilly is in the driver’s seat. TCS should want to keep them happy," said Kenneth Dau-Schmidt, a labor and employment law professor at Indiana University in Bloomington. "If Lilly doesn’t complain to them, they probably don’t care."
Rajesh Gopinathan, chief executive and managing director of Tata Consultancy Services, announces the company's quarterly earnings results during a news conference in Mumbai on Jan. 9. The India-based contractor, which provides IT services to dozens of American companies, including Eli Lilly, has been accused by several employees of unfair wage practices.
Paying less than other employers is not illegal, unless companies underpay employees based on race, gender and other factors, or if they’re violating minimum-wage laws, Dau-Schmidt said.
The allegations against TCS come as companies have increasingly relied on contractors to save money. This has led to allegations of exploitation of low-wage, blue collar workers. Jobs such as cleaning, maintenance and cooking are increasingly contracted out to companies that bid the lowest rate to provide services. That creates an incentive to keep wages low.
The result: Contracted employees often become the lowest paid and don’t enjoy the pay and benefits of a prominent company.
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Lilly declined to say whether it knows about the issues at TCS and whether it addressed them with the company. The pharmaceutical giant also did not answer basic questions about TCS, including how much it's paying the contractor for its services. Instead, Lilly said in a statement that it assesses reports of all potential wrongdoing and takes action if needed.
"Lilly is committed to upholding high standards of corporate conduct and we expect our suppliers to conduct Lilly business consistent with these standards and our values of integrity, excellence, and respect for our people," the company said.
A TCS spokesperson said in a statement that the company "attracts Indiana's talented tech workers by providing competitive compensation in line with the IT industry."
But Bureau of Labor Statistics data on comparable IT jobs in Indiana and nationwide shows that TCS employees interviewed by IndyStar are paid thousands of dollars below the annual average wages for workers performing similar jobs. Some said they struggle to make ends meet, despite years of experience and college degrees. Nearly all said their salaries have remained low even with good performance reviews, and pleas for more reasonable pay have gone unheard.
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One employee said he took a nearly $30,000 pay cut when he moved to TCS for a similar job. The message he got from the company: Take it or leave it.
For months, Smith said, workers he supervised asked him why they couldn’t get a promotion and why they couldn’t get reasonable pay.
"And I essentially had to lie to them, telling them, 'Well, you know, you’ll get it eventually,'" he said. "But in the back of my head, I knew that they would never give it to them."
Smith said he repeatedly brought up the problems with TCS supervisors and with Lilly’s ethics and compliance department. To his knowledge, almost no one has been helped.
"We’re hurting good people," Smith said in a lengthy email to TCS supervisors last year.
He left the company in 2022.
Tech giant faced similar allegations
Based in Mumbai, TCS is one of the largest tech companies in India with a growing imprint on the white-collar workforce in the U.S. That market includes Indiana.
TCS has grown from 116,000 to about 600,000 employees worldwide in less than 15 years. It has hired 32,000 employees in the U.S. in the past five years, according to its latest annual report. In Indiana, nearly 900 Hoosiers work for TCS, including more than 400 who were hired in the last four years, the company's spokesperson said.
The company said it helps the state in other ways, including a STEM education program that benefited 10,000 students in Indiana. Fortune Magazine also recognized TCS as one of the best big companies to work for in 2021.
Rajesh Gopinathan, chief executive and managing director of Tata Consultancy Services, announces the company's quarterly earnings results during a news conference in Mumbai on Jan. 9. The India-based contractor, which provides IT services to dozens of American companies, including Eli Lilly, has been accused by several employees of unfair wage practices.
But the company has faced allegations of mistreating its workforce and violating U.S. visa laws to maximize profit.
A federal class-action lawsuit accuses TCS of relying heavily on foreign workers who are brought from India to the U.S. through a work visa process and then paying them far less than their American counterparts. The suit also alleges TCS flouts U.S. laws by applying for more worker visas than it has positions.
Another federal class-action lawsuit, which Smith said he intends to join, accuses the company of discriminating against American workers who are often passed over for positions and promotions in favor of foreign workers.
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TCS did not comment on allegations of discrimination and about its visa practices. But the company's lawyers have sought to dismiss both lawsuits. They argued there's no evidence that visa workers were paid less, and plaintiffs have not shown what company policy disproportionately discriminated against a group of people based on race, religion, gender and other factors.
It’s unclear how many TCS visa workers are employed in Indiana.
'Neglected and abused'
In Indianapolis, several TCS employees described a bait-and-switch tactic that traps them in an abusive relationship: They get hired — often with low starting salaries — only to be given more complicated, technical, and additional responsibilities without a raise or a promotion.
"I am willing to bleed for the company. I'm willing to work extra hours, work on weekends," said an employee who, like others, agreed to talk only anonymously for fear of losing their jobs. "I've done whatever it takes to take care of my company, but my company doesn't take care of me."
The employee said he began working for TCS about four years ago as an IT technician at Lilly making more than $50,000. He now manages a team that handles more complex IT problems for Lilly. With nearly 20 years of experience, he makes a little less than $60,000, a modestly higher salary that he said does not reflect how his job has evolved.
The average salary for a similar job in Indiana is more than twice that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The employee said he has been recruited by other companies for better-paying jobs, but he has stayed because he loves what he does, and he loves working at Lilly, albeit indirectly.
Lilly Research Laboratories on the Eli Lilly campus in Indianapolis.
"I don’t want to leave," he said. "But it makes it more difficult knowing that there’s nothing I can do to make more money. There is no path for me to get there."
Employees said they do get small pay raises and bonuses based on job performance, but those are barely enough to cover cost-of-living increases.
Another employee said he has seen new hires with a higher starting salary than what he makes after more than 20 years in IT, including nearly a decade at TCS.
"Why have me in a position that I can’t get rightfully paid for?" the employee said. "I do not understand that."
He said he was hired as part of the tech support staff at a salary of $50,000. He's now a supervisor, but even with his experience and a bachelor's degree, he makes less than $60,000.
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The average salary for a similar job in Indiana is nearly $90,000.
"It makes me feel basically neglected and abused," the employee said. "It makes me feel being taken advantage of."
A former employee said many of them were told they will receive promotions and raises. But, he said, it's all "smoke and mirrors." Late last year, a human resource representative announced promotions have been put on hold, multiple employees said.
This employee, whose job at TCS has an average statewide pay of about $90,000, said he was initially hired as a lab technician making $50,000. Five years later ― and after being given managerial duties ― he was making only $55,000.
"If I was properly paid, I could do more for my children, I could do more for my house," said the employee, who has young children. "I'm praised by my Lilly supervisors. I’m doing great, cutting-edge stuff, but my TCS employer doesn’t even acknowledge that."
'Anything but a standard IT job'
Some who spoke with IndyStar are based at Lilly’s biotechnology center in San Diego, where the cost of living is significantly higher. Employees there said their on-site jobs are far more difficult than the typical desktop support staff, and they should be compensated as such.
"When taking into consideration the type of research being done at the Lilly biotech facility and the magnitude that any critical failures can have on completing experiments, it is anything but a standard IT job," one employee said.
He began working at TCS in 2016 as a helpdesk support staff making more than $50,000. Now, after nearly 30 years in the IT industry, including more than six years at TCS, he makes a little over $60,000 — lower than what some younger employees make.
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The employee has filed an EEOC complaint alleging age discrimination. He said older workers like him are seen as more dispensable, while younger workers are valued more because they’re expected to stay longer.
"The fact that I have to fight just to get a fair wage for a company I've been with for several years and had done what I did here, it’s just frustrating to me," he said. "It’s unfair."
Quintin Malone, a systems administrator who also filed an EEOC complaint, said TCS reluctantly agreed to raise his salary to $70,000 — a $20,000 raise — after six months of negotiation. But even that is barely enough to make ends meet in San Diego, where Malone pays $2,000 for a one-bedroom apartment.
The average salary for a systems administrator in California is $105,770.
"We're not normal systems administrators. We're systems administrators for Lilly," said Malone, who has a disability after a stroke a few years ago. "We deal with multimillion-dollar machines on a daily basis, so it's not like your regular desktop computers."
A TCS spokesperson said the company has not been notified of any EEOC complaints filed by employees working at Lilly facilities in Indiana and California.
'I owe a lot to Lilly,' but employee says company has failed
Barry Smith worked for Tata Consultancy Services for nearly a decade, providing IT services for Eli Lilly. The India-based contractor, which employs hundreds of people in Indiana, has been accused by several employees of unfair wage practices, including paying them far less than the average salary in Indiana for comparable high-tech IT jobs.
Lilly is the reason Indianapolis became Smith’s home. His father began working for Elanco Animal Health, a former Lilly subsidiary, right out of college and moved his family from Iowa to Indiana. His father stayed with the company for 30 years.
"I grew up around Lilly. I spent time at the corporate center as a kid," Smith said, referring to Lilly’s headquarters in downtown Indianapolis. "I owe a lot to Lilly."
But he said the company he once admired has become "the villain" for failing to take action even after he reported the problems to its ethics and compliance department last year.
Lilly declined to confirm whether it has received an ethics complaint against TCS, although emails show Smith alerting one of the company's ethics and compliance investigators about "widespread" pay problems.
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"I want to change this and right the wrongs," Smith wrote in a May 18, 2022 email to Lilly's ethics and compliance investigator.
Smith left TCS months later. By then, his salary had been raised to $80,000 ― twice what he was making when he was hired ― and he was given six months of back pay. But Smith said that was after he filed an EEOC complaint. Even with his improved salary, he was still underpaid.
The average salary for a similar job in Indiana is $125,180
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