Some Soul-searching required...

Recently Atmel sold it Grenoble(france) wafer fab. Some news-searching revealed the causes to be :

• High Wages
• High Taxes
• Stringent Labour laws

Which means Europe is slowly getting in its own way of progress. The labour laws scare away the Semiconductor Investor to cheaper and newer markets in Asia.

Intel restructuring : 1000 managers to be laid off .
What I can understand from this is that Intel wants to cut its excess baggage.
But where did this excess baggage come from ?
Managers got Intel inside after proving themselves and showing revenues to Intel.
Now with revenues dipping Intel wants to Focus on Research and Development to get back in business.
now question remains what's gonna happen once they are told by Lehmann brothers that scientists need to be chucked out and new Products need to be brought out in the market.

It seems companies in the US take the US labour laws into account while laying off employees.
Intel fired some employees in Bangalore. But it did forget that the Labour laws differ in other geographies. So it invented novel ways to get Intel inside people outside, It laid off people on charges of faking bills. While this might be true sometimes but specially since Intel did this twice makes it a bit Murky.
This improreity I feel is the ingenuity of the Intel HR dept which exploits loopholes in employment laws to achieve the re-structuring.

Does anybody in India probe such unfair trade or employment practices ??

AFAIK nobody really cares, I have hardly heard the Labour Minister Kapil Sibal say anything at all apart from apolitical talk.
Employees of indian companies such as Infosys, Wipro and TCS never think of any other company and laying off is a thing unheard of phenomenon.

Both the above stories show that labour laws can be a boon or bane.
India should especially tighten its labour laws to such MNC Fancies such as lay-offs.
As population in India explodes we need to bring in better labour laws which can help the emerging industries while not scaring away the Investors.
The Labour Laws have to study the Employee-Employer case studies and strike the right balance which will favour both the parties. But do we have qualified Labour Ministry which notices such anamolous MNC operating behaviour.
I believe our Democratic setup lets loose Opportunistic ministers who don't really exercise or administer their authority for the greater well-being of the Country.

Well till then the MNCs will have a Gala time axing people at their whims and fancies.

~Prasanna.