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IT Services Group Wipro Fires 300 Employees Moonlighting For Competitors (techcrunch.com) 82

Posted by msmash from the what-else-were-they-expecting dept.
IT services giant Wipro has fired 300 employees in recent months who were found to be moonlighting for competitors, a top executive said Wednesday, weighing in on a practice that has gained momentum across the globe as firms incorporate work-from-home norms. From a report: Rishad Premji, the chairman of Wipro, which employs over 250,000 employees in over five dozen nations, said at a conference Wednesday that the company finds moonlighting for competitors an "act of integrity violation."
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IT Services Group Wipro Fires 300 Employees Moonlighting For Competitors More

IT Services Group Wipro Fires 300 Employees Moonlighting For Competitors

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  • Under labor laws in some areas they can't control (Score:3)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @02:17PM (#62901907)

    Under labor laws in some areas they can't control who you work for outside of the job hours / more.
    In some places non-compete clauses are very limited in what they can limit.

    • I had the exact same thought. It appears that the people they fired were working in foreign countries, where apparently they don't have the same protections.

      People complain about California, but we do have some decent worker protections, at least.

    • Under labor laws in some areas they can't control who you work for outside of the job hours / more.

      India has no such labour laws.

    • I think the point is that they are working from Home, 9-5 2 jobs at a time. So any delay in answering some support call/email is assumed to be because you are working on something else legitimate or taking one of the acceptable breaks at an acceptable rate. I worked in an office a decade ago for a financial software company, and it sure sounded like the guy in the cubical next to me was answering phones for some other random company while doing his job.

  • They were working for someone else cause you couldn't be bothered to pay them more.
    And decided to fire them without just cause so you can pad your bank account more.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by DigitAl56K ( 805623 )

      That's kind of a BS argument. If you're working for employer A and you're unhappy with the pay and want to work for competitor B, you can ethically do so by leaving employer A and going to work for competitor B.

      • Bold of you to assume it is a competitor. Moonlighting at Wal-Mart as a greeter after hours could hardly be called competition to your day job as a software developer for Microsoft. If I'm doing that after hours and not on company time that is hardly unethical or a conflict of interest.
      • Except that A and B are not paying enough alone so I need both.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by DigitAl56K ( 805623 )

          But you don't necessarily have a right to both. There are any number of reasons why I might personally feel that I'm not being paid enough. If the market won't bear higher pay then that might be a problem but it's rare that you can ethically work for two competitors at the same time.

          Can you guarantee you aren't using the resources of one company to benefit the other? (hardware, software, licenses, knowledge base, processes, trade secrets, contacts/relationships etc.) Do you have incentive to aid one to the

          • what about pay per call jobs where you need multi jobs some times to fill the day?
            people who work lift and uber at the same time?
            are the working being paid to sit and wait for tickets / calls? or are they paided per ticket / call?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by nasch ( 598556 )

              people who work lift and uber at the same time?

              That would hinge on whether they're employees or contractors. I don't know if there are still court cases ongoing about that.

      • If you're working for employer A and you're unhappy with the pay and want to work for competitor B, you can ethically do so by continuing to work for employer A and also working for competitor B.

        As long as an employee does his work, his free time is none of the employer's business. If an employer wants to control the free time of an employee, they should pay for it.

        • As long as an employee does his work, his free time is none of the employer's business. If an employer wants to control the free time of an employee, they should pay for it.

          The legal bullshit loophole that you're dancing around for salaried IT employees is called "on call".

          Many don't have "free time". They only have time when someone isn't nagging them about work shit. You're an employee 24/7.

          • If I'm on call, you better pay me for it.

            • If I'm on call, you better pay me for it.

              You are being paid by earning the same amount no matter how many hours you actually work. It's called a salary. You negotiate a higher number for being "on call". You either accept that responsibility, or walk. That's it.

              • You negotiate a higher number for being "on call".

                Exactly.

                But being "on call" doesn't mean you own my time off work. It means I will help you in emergencies. If you want more, you have to pay more.

                If you want the privilege of me not working for someone else, you better put it in the contract and pay for it. That's it.

                Moonlighting is a protected activity in California. You, as an employer, get no special privileges to stop it.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Hodr ( 219920 )

                  Absolutely Moonlighting is protected, as it should be. But even in California you would have a hard time preventing an employer from firing someone that works for a direct competitor.

                  That's not a protected class, it's not harassment, and it's not unethical. You are free to work for whomever you want in your free time, and your employer is free to determine that said employment impairs your ability to perform to the jobs to their standards.

                • Moonlighting is a protected activity in California. You, as an employer, get no special privileges to stop it.

                  Right-to-work is what goes on outside of your California bubble example. You as an employee, get no special rights or guarantees to employment. Moonlighting is one thing. Working for the competition is another matter entirely, as seen by the one who found a reason to fire you for it, regardless of employment law.

                  • jimmy john's said competition was just about any fast food when they Tried BS like this on there low wage workers.

                    • jimmy john's said competition was just about any fast food when they Tried BS like this on there low wage workers.

                      Yeah, and John got his Jimmy whacked pretty hard with a lawsuit and six-figure settlement pulling that stunt. Was legally forced to drop the non-compete clause. I doubt we'll see anyone else in that industry try it.

                  • Yeah, that's why I don't work for employers like you.

                    • Yeah, that's why I don't work for employers like you.

                      When you're moonlighting for the competition, you're not even working for your employer. You're working against them.

                      Put yourself in the owners shoes and behave differently. They just had to let go of three of your co-workers due to declines in sales and revenue. Seems the competition has gotten some killer help lately.

                    • Put yourself in the owners shoes and behave differently

                      Nah. The company is not going to do anything for me. I'm not going to do anything for them. It's a fair exchange, money for my production. If the company wants something more, we can negotiate it.

                    • btw, if you are my boss and we build a relationship, I will be loyal to you, but I won't be loyal to the company. That relationship is built on friendship and mutual respect.

                      Working for the company though, that's purely contract. There can be no loyalty there because the company never will be.

          • That's why work from home is so awesome. Just work both 8-5 on call jobs at the same time and collect two salaries. Your performance will surely drop for the original company but as long as you do enough not to get fired, you win!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        If you are not leaking information or transferring work between the competitors then there is nothing unethical about working for two competing companies at the same time.

        It happens a lot, especially when people are on part-time contracts or contracts without guaranteed hours - you pick up whatever hours are available from whatever companies are offering them. When you work in and have experience of a particular field it stands to reason that you'd want to work in the same field, plus if a company is unable

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rnturn ( 11092 )

        Ah. There's always the case where you'll be underpaid by Company B after leaving Company A... for being underpaid.

        I never hear about people, say, cleaning hotel rooms for one company and then having to take a second shift job doing the same thing for another company in order to make ends meet. But here in IT Land we have to have Ethics and not work a second job in the same field. Where it could be unethical? If you were working both jobs on the same shift, though, frankly, I don't know how you'd even be ab

    • They could work a second or third job for someone else, as long as it's not a competitor. Otherwise there are sticky issues regarding trade secrets and the like and companies are very wary of that. Now given that it's an IT services provider and everyone there is a cookie-cutter clone, trade secrets might be a stretch ("our secret sauce is that we recommend Microsoft products as the answer to every question").

  • What's old is new again (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @02:22PM (#62901919) Homepage

    Every generation thinks they're the first to think up some idea.

    I heard of a guy in our university co-op program who managed to bag two co-op jobs (at competing companies) during the same 4-month term, and he managed to hold down both full-time in-person jobs for a little over 2 months before he got caught. He would tell his boss he was going to the lab, then go out to his car and go to his other job, then vice versa. Crazy. He ended up fired from both.

    This isn't the first generation to have people work remotely, and you're not the first person working remotely to wonder if you could double-dip.

    It reminds me of the stock market in 1999. What was the phrase? "Irrational exuberance?" People literally told me that the economy had fundamentally changed and these huge P/E ratios were just normal because tech stocks would just keep growing forever. Then it all crashed. In 2007 you have interest-only mortgages and people saying things like, "real estate never goes down in value." Then it all crashed. A couple years ago you have crypto bros telling you a bitcoin with literally no intrinsic value is worth tens of thousands of dollars. Thank goodness we're always making more fools, or the scammers wouldn't have anything to do.

    • I knew someone laid off near instantly when the boss found out he had a second job (not even with a competitor, just working for himself). The issue in that case wasn't about working a second job, but instead it was bout the lying. So if you're going to lie, don't get caught.

      Definitely the work at home makes it so much easier to work two or three jobs in the same amount of time.

      • Definitely the work at home makes it so much easier to work two or three jobs in the same amount of time.

        If you're working two or three jobs at the same time, yes, you should be fired. You were hired by the first employer to work whatever hours you agreed on and for whatever pay. Working any other job at the same time as the first job is definitely means for firing.

        If you dont think so, turn it around and work in an office for one company while doing work for a second company at the same time.

        • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • I agree with you, but you're ignoring the reality that working a second job from the office was common behavior pre-pandemic, just not like how this article describes.

          Around me assholes were running used-car businesses, house flipping businesses and god knows what else from their desk. In some large environments (government, finance sector) there's literally no meaningful work for the average employee to do, and retention depends on kind of department-wide theater where everyone issues a report saying that

    • I don't see how your last paragraph relates to working two jobs. Are you saying there won't always be jobs available?

    • Re:What's old is new again (Score:5, Interesting)

      by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @02:43PM (#62901999)

      I knew people worked two jobs too, but the most interesting anecdote I've heard from that is one of the moonlighting people I knew once had a call where his second job's company had to provide some tech support to his first job and although he wasn't the lead he had to provide input on the call. His bosses were on the call but he still managed to pull it off such that neither boss caught on. In fact the boss from the first company said he appeared well researched. This happened over 20 years ago.

    • I'd point you to a Dilbert cartoon of Wally doing exactly this, but I can seem to find it right now.

  • Taking tips from Wally (Score:3)

    by Simon Rowe ( 1206316 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @02:22PM (#62901923)
    https://dilbert.com/strip/2020... [dilbert.com]

  • Brazil has a similar system to india, in which tech imports are heavily taxed if not made/assembled in the country.
    Mexico forms part of NAFTA, so is cheaper (tax wise) to make phones there and send them to canada and the USoA.
    Both countries have low salaries, and lax laws, just like apple likes.
    And if you choose a suitable location, a contractor for a company with apple's prestige will have no lack of suitable qualified personnel.

    Conceivably, apple's contractors could make phones with processors made by TSM

    • I think it would actually depend on if said employee read the contract or not.

      And given how many people read EULAs...let's just say South Park made an episode on it and leave it at that.

      • I think it would actually depend on if said employee read the contract or not.

        And had an accurate understanding of their local law to determine which terms were enforceable and which terms weren't.

  • They apply the same logic to their board, right? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @03:02PM (#62902073)

    I mean, they will instantly fire someone from their board if they're working somewhere else, too, right? Right?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      If it's like some other companies, they would probably also sue someone in a high position if they were secretly working for another company, on top of firing.

    • And selling a company is off course also an integrity violation.

    • I mean, they will instantly fire someone from their board if they're working somewhere else, too, right? Right?

      Of course. If you're a board member and you're working you're clearly not cut out to be a board member. You belong with the common folk.

    • Being a board member does not make you an employee of the company, it makes you a representative of the shareholders.

  • Does not sound like a problem to me. It seems their employees are actually untypically well-behaved.

  • Maybe there's a compensation-related reason behind their taking outside jobs. Ever thought of that?

  • Well, I've solved this problem by moonlighting with Satan. My primary company doesn't dare complain or I will expose most of their top execs.

  • There are some considerations at play here related to potential leakage of confidential information, but on the flip side, when you are a specialist in a particular IT field (especially in the cookie cutter world of IT services) it's likely that any second job you take concurrently could be considered as being 'with a competitor' through a certain lens - a patch protection lens, that is.

    Does Wipro really believe that some tech support helpdesk guy working on someone else's helpdesk is an "integrity violatio

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