Rajeev Chandrasekhar says captive work models will fail

The minister of state for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said that companies should understand the structural shift in the industry and that captive work models would fail if they were applied to the moonlight debate in the software industry.

Chandrasekhar spoke at the annual forum of the Public Affairs Forum of India on Friday, saying: Moonlighting represents two very significant phenomena. The entrepreneurial bug that has bitten every techie has bitten one. There is a talent deficit or demand for talent. The change in the model is not understood by the company to forbid a young engineer from dabbling in a startup. He said that this is the age of employee-entrepreneurs and companies must now understand that there has been a shift in the minds and attitudes of the young Indian tech workforce. He said that the days when employees signed up with big tech majors and spent their lives on the job were long gone.

The moonlighting concept allows workers to earn extra money by taking up alternative jobs apart from their primary job. When the pandemic started, the IT and software services industry adopted a remote-working model, because of which many employees could work on other projects. It is noted that Wipro chairperson Rishad Premji sparked the moonlighting debate in the country last month and expressed his displeasure about the concept of moonlighting. He revealed earlier this week that Wipro had fired 300 employees over moonlighting. Premji defended his action, saying that the company had found 300 people moonlighting and working for competitors in the last few months. He later said that those employees were terminated by the company.

Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys, and other IT firms have condemned moonlighting, calling it cheating. Like Wipro, Infosys has warned its staff to work on a second job while having a contract with them. The management has said that dual employment can lead to termination from the job.

I agree with one part of the moonlighting argument that if one is a contracted employee of a company, and your contract says, non- compete, confidentiality clauses, then you are obviously running afoul of contract law. Two jobs or dual employment in India are not allowed under the Factories Act. Most companies don't allow their employees to take up freelance jobs or side jobs if they are on their payroll. Companies have a clause in their contracts that says they can't take up secondary jobs. Breaching this clause can lead to termination and have legal implications too.