In India, TinyOwl Founder Detained for 2 Days by Laid-Off Employees and the Police
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This guy should lose his funding, at the least for following this pattern of behaviour and choosing to exploit the local economy by paying his workers well below what would be considered a reasonable wage anywhere else.
Post Independence in 1947, govt jobs have been held in very high regard and no one gets fired from those jobs. They're mostly patronage.
Getting fired is a concept is still a new concept for most. People don't get fired, they're asked to resign. Even labour laws haven't been updated with the times. You can hire, but can't fire.
Also, people feel entitled to job security here and have not experienced a single recession in the last 30 years.
You must understand, Tiny Owl pays very well. Relatively. People with six months of managerial experience are getting paid $40,000. That's a lot here. It takes 8-10 years to get to that pay in regular large organizations.
But where they went wrong: 1. Hiring one bad apple who encouraged others to gang up on the founder. This is no way to resolve a professional dispute.
2. Not anticipating redundancy in positions well in advance, and communicating and disclosing the risks. Perhaps those jobs could have had a built in expiry and conditional renewal clause in their contracts.
But had they been growing as they did earlier this year, there would not have been any redundancy. The problem was credit dried up and competition became too fierce.
> India didnt have a lot of private organizations to work for before the 80s.
A good chunk of our planet didn't have that prior to 80s, not just India.
> Post Independence in 1947, govt jobs have been held in very high regard and no one gets fired from those jobs. They're mostly patronage.
Nothing changed in this regard.
And, no
> People with six months of managerial experience are getting paid $40,000
is an exception and not a norm. Your comment makes it look like, it's the norm here. I work in one of the blue eyes Indian startups (which translates to yes, it's burning money like most of the Indian startups but has more hope riding on it than the others) and I see these salary figures from up close.
What TinyOwl's founder(s) did is very simple - fraud! That's why they were held hostage knowing that being moneybags they would be untouchable once they are out and they (the employees) would probably never get their wages. You didn't even mention this issue in your comment. Or are you deliberately trying to spin the story? Is it a PR attempt, considering the age of your account? Anyway, that's another debate.
Also, the people holding the founder hostage were not at all those "management graduates" with that kind of salaries. They were the people who were kind of making ends meet, of course relatively speaking. They saw they were being cheated and took matters in their own hands, which, IMHO, even though illegal was/is the most effective way here.
What I have noticed in Indian startups (where I work included and maybe this is how it is worldwide), the founders wants quick numbers - by the hook, or by the crook. Well, the difference is in the west (US/EU) there's the law and the watchdogs who bring the crooks to the book, in India everything has a price and you can buy it if you can pay including the law and the courts. So that's there.
The central point I was trying to make in my reply was that getting fired (or being a college dropout or bankrupt) is a huge social stigma. It's a relic, in my opinion, of the pre-liberalization times.
"A good chunk of our planet didn't have that prior to 80s, not just India." This is plain wrong. It was hard to open new business because of lack of cheap credit and license permit system. Most of the developed world had systems in place for half a century before we had them. We didn't have banks, we relied on funds from friends and family, or the shadow banking system that is so prominent in Gujarati and Marwari communities. We didn't have the economic freedom to start large organizations, and those who could, were the elite families who had access, and stranglehold over the govt. They had the power and connections to use their levers in govt to acquire licenses and contracts. Which might explain why we have most number of inherited billionaires in the richest Indians list.
Ok, so why is this history relevant? Getting laid off as a concept hasn't seeped in the public psyche yet. Because it a huge social stigma and because for many working for corporate is recent experience. There weren't many to speak of. Add to that, there hasn't been a single recession.
".. they (the employees) would probably never get their wages." Do you really think the founders would not pay? In this age where the smallest stories can get wide attention, I don't think they can ever get away with something like this.
So what is the dispute about? 1. On the surface, about timing of payment. For which they can work out a resolution, but ganging up on anyone is not a good way to resolve issues. Employees aren't that powerless, that they have to resort to physical means - it is not the most effective means. Internet and sites like Twitter has leveled the field a little for everyone. If ganging up is the most effective means to deal with this, then it is mostly a lack of imagination on the part of those employees.
2. At the core, about getting fired. Their anger is about getting fired. Founders have handled it ineptly. If their jobs became redundant because of automation of orders, the firm should have set the expectations right from the start. They certainly shouldn't have laid them off in a sudden move.
Also, what I think, from a plain econ 101 pov, is that harder we make firing, slower hiring becomes - because vacancies won't open easily, and more difficult is it to get hired into good jobs. Hiring and firing should be easy - determined solely by economic rationalie. The more efficient labour market is, the better off everyone is.
My only point is that ganging up is no solution - which they did because of the emotive issue. In the long run, it clips the wings of the individual.
While "ganging up is no solution" might make sense if there were alternatives, in this case, it seems likely that "ganging up" was their only chance of getting paid. It seems like the police in this case, saw the unfairness of it and sided with the workers.
As far as the police is concerned, they are highly inept, dysfunctional, and enjoy discretionary powers. Most people don't trust them or their judgment, and wish they never have to deal with the police.
This sounds uncannily like H-1B visas. :(
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/22/abu-dhabi-migra...
Indian laws are outright crazy and favor labor and not the employer in all cases. One of the so called "reform" that current government is doing is to provide an exit option for failed businesses.
But in either case the point here is that India does not have a working judiciary that can enforce contracts and hence people take law into their hand which is wrong even if the co-founder was at err.
Imagine these employees had to go to court to get their due. My uncle is fighting a similar case for last 32 years.
Check what happened to this mailman who was fired by postal department accusing him of stealing Rs 50 (80 cents). The case took 30 years and eventually reached Supreme Court.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/After-29-years-man-...
Like other Indian institutions, judiciary too is corrupt (but I don't see it represented as such in the media) at the lower levels.
Courts waste a lot of time on technicality and morality rather than pure pragmatism and sense of justice. For example a murder in India is not just a murder. Depending on the gender, age, reasons, motives there are at least 45 different laws that can be applied. Murder out of religious superstition would warrant a totally different legal approach than say murder in domestic abuse because at core the court is not looking at it as violation of person's right to life.
On the other hand what piques my interest is the way VCs behave in India. Instead of carrying an insight they tend to "follow" the "trend" which by definition is not an optimal thing to do.
In just few months time they have gone from investing in all possible weird food startup to taking money away from even the promising ones.
The nature of VCs is very fickle, at least in India.
The funny thing is: there were police and politicians involved on the scene! If they too cornered him, forget about crimes and the application of law.
All the employees could still end up in jail for 3 years though its not likely.
Most people here would condemn the founder and think the gang was justified in bullying the founder. Take a look at any comment thread.
Hence law is of no effect.
Or the ear-to-ear grin on the mug shot of the mom who was arrested for beating the guy who molested her kids. I'm sure at that point the cops were just going through the motions and she was released in hours.
In India police mostly see themselves as keepers of peace and would use arbitrary force to keep things from escalating. Indian laws are complex and hence cops can do whatever they want without impunity.
Check what happened to this Australian [1]. Not only he was harassed by people but the police made him write an apology letter to those people who manhandled him. (All because the guy had a tattoo that offended other people.)
There are some other crazy things in India for example "Right to Education" law which basically forces to shut schools down if they do not comply with arbitrary clauses but only if the school is run by a Hindu. If the school is run by a Christian or Muslim the school need not comply with the law.
However, the constitution bench exempted minority
schools, both aided and unaided, from the purview
of the Act. It said minority schools could not be
put under legal obligation to provide free and
compulsory elementary education to children
who were not members of the minority community
which had established the school. It said,
"In our view, if the Act is made applicable
to minority schools, aided or unaided, the right
of the minorities under Article 30(1) of the
Constitution will be abrogated. Therefore,
the (provision of the) 2009 Act, which made it
applicable to minority schools is unconstitutional."
[1]
And so far as schools being shut for not complying with some "arbitrary clause", it is actually more about private schools refusing to fulfil 25% reservation for children from socially backward communities. You also left that out.
Jai Hind!
[1] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/25-pc-re...
For example does it make sense to give exemption to a christian businessman calling it a minority right ? You can but that would be against common sense just like in the education case.
The serious effects of this law is that while Hindus have to jump through the draconian provisions of RTE, a church run school need not. Guess which schools will run more efficiently and grow at a faster rate and provide better education ?
I am not sure why minorities should have a different set of rights than the majority. Uniformity should be the foundation of law.
Regardless of that, as everyone in aware, religious minorities perform poorly on most social indicators - often ranking even below the scheduled caste. The Sachar committee report [1] is full of examples which illustrate this point.
So it also makes pragmatic sense for state to proactively work for their upliftment. We also do it for schedule/backward caste members even thought they belong to the majority religion.
Btw, I would just say that your point about draconian provisions is simply unsubstantiated.
I'm proactively repeatedly countering you on unsubstantiated facts, just because I don't want such misinformation to spread around and influence other minds.
[1] http://www.minorityaffairs.gov.in/sites/upload_files/moma/fi...
Unless you are ignoring a distinction no one should be given a right that grossly violates rights of someone else.
I would have agreed with you if the exemption was limited to religious education meant for that community only.
Under the current law Hindu schools can not operate and compete with Church run schools and I find that vile and against basic sense of justice.
Sachar committee is a heap of garbage for many reasons. But even if we accept it only Muslism community among minorities seem to suck not Christian or Parasis or Jains or Sikhs. That despite being the most politically influential community in India.
(This trend is seen in USA too where politically influential Irish Americans score worse than least influential Japanese Americans on socio economic indicators).
RTE's draconian provisions and how they hurt both Hindu community and schools is well documented. Over 15K schools are in danger of losing their legal status because of this law.
Also I am completely unaware how it can be justfied that a Hindu can not preside over NMEC which happens to be a government's administrative body!
Check this: [1] Over 1 lakh schools shut down because of RTE http://www.governancenow.com/news/regular-story/rte-5-years-...
[2] Church runs schools banning pagan practices in their schools. https://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2015/10/24/analyzing-indi...
[3] Statewise numbers of schools shut down because of RTE http://nisaindia.org/data-on-school-closures
[4] Constitutionality of NCMEI challenged https://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2015/05/09/is-the-congres...
The "National Independent School Association", NISA, have been lobbying unsuccessfully against RTE for years. That's just because most private schools don't want to reserve 25% seats for backward/schedule caste. It's as simple as that. Someone should tell them it is 2015!
You can't expect minority institutions to adhere to this quota for backward hindus, since minorities such as muslims are socially, economically, and educationally backward themselves.
Also, it's not that a NCMEI chairperson can not be a hindu, but that he should be a minority himself. It makes total sense to me since it's the "National Minority Education Commission".
I'll again rephrase.
RTE needs to be applied to private schools so backward/schedule caste have access to education just like you and me. It does it by reservations and regulations.
It doesn't apply to minority institutions because bulk of minorities are backward/scheduled themselves. So they can't be expected to have reservations for backward/scheduled from mainstream.
I can't see how anyone can consider this to be vile from a neutral standpoint. In fact to me it just illustrates some of the most peculiar strengths of the Indian system.
It could have been a minority rights issue if this exemption was limited to say a church run institution for religious studies. But then why not give same exemption to Hindu school for religious studies ?
Another catch. Some Indian states like J&K and Kerala have Hindus as minorities. But Hindus can not run minority institutions despite this. Reason ? Any minority institution needs to get a N.O.C. from National Minority Education Council but by law only Christians and Muslims can be members of this council and are allowed to give permissions only to Christian and Muslims schools.
It's actually quite simple to understand I think, and the judgment says so in what is plain language, not some sophistry.
And Hindus are minorities in Kerala? Despite being 54% of total population? Citation please.
As far as J&K as concerned, I'm not too sure what you are saying is correct. Maybe it's true, but then J&K never merged with the India, so it's possible since laws enacted by parliament don't automatically apply to J&K. Citation please.
EDIT: Your point about NMEC is invalid as well [2].
Let me know if you want me to suggest some material/books so you can better understand this issue.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Kerala
[2] http://ncmei.gov.in/writereaddata/filelinks/c296efcb_Guideli...