Hacker News Reader

Comment by devnull3 | Hacker News Reader

In India your new employer demands "leaving certificate". This is an official letter from previous letter that you are no longer employed with them.

An existing employer can weaponize this and simply not issue this letter.

This does not happen in India but I am not sure if this the case in Japan though.

View on HN

Are there laws that stipulate that or is it just a custom?

The letter of the law is not that strong in India..

At a coarser level it works in India, but not at granular level. If you are involved in a lawsuit then it can drag for years. So essentially it becomes "justice delayed is justice denied".

Not in India but in Hungary you also have exit paperwork. Without the exit papers from your previous company, a new company cannot begin making social security contributions on your behalf, which means your employment is not legal (there is a grace period I think but most companies will not allow you to start work without the exit papers). Where I work this is not weaponised to stop people leaving, but we do withhold the exit papers until the last day of the notice period (it is common in Hungary to have to give 30-60 days’ notice to your current employer) as a type of enforcement.

India has mandatory EPF (India's counterpart of the 401(k)) contribution for salaried employees, and in cases of dual employment (i.e. dual streams of employer deposits) it causes all sorts of issues and in most cases result in immediate blacklisting of the employee.

Also, labor protection for white-caller workers is non-existent in India. Basic expectations like fixed working hours, 5-day weeks, paid overtime etc are luxuries only attributable to the absolute top cream of employers (which mostly tend to be non-Indian MNCs). Other basic things like 2-week notices, flexible retirement and paternal leaves are just straight-up absent, even in top employers.

I worked with Indian off-shore and on-shore outsourcers, and their working conditions terrified me. These were IT consultants, and as you said, all but the tiniest percentage at the very top were treated like slaves.

There are 2 types of companies in India at present:

1. Services

2. Products

The product companies's culture and environment are on-par with silicon valley and this includes a good pay as well.

Services is another matter. The fundamental issue is the business model. These companies earn revenue per person and hence the incentive is to over-staff or over-sell the people needed. There is no incentive to solve or be pro-active about customer's problems.

Not a law per-se but I am not aware of any firm which allows dual employment. Moonlighting is not allowed and is mentioned in the employment contract.

Hence the "leaving certificate" serves multiple purpose:

1. Person is not working elsewhere

2. Person has gracefully exited the employement and there not pending dues or conflicts.

imagine not getting to get a job because you owe your previous employer money

Same in my country, to handover the information about leave days taken etc. Employer is not legally allowed to withhold it, though (but some use it as a leverage to get the employee to return all work equipment etc).

What possible justification is there for that? How did the country of Gandhi get to the point where humans are treated like corporate property?

Same thing happened that has the cooks and gardeners beholden to non-compete agreements in the land of the free!

Greed is universal. Slavery is one of the outcomes.

The less said about Gandhi the better. He had an amazing PR in the age when there was no concept of PR.

The world has always been divide on: Owners and workers. This transcends communism and capitalism. Owners always wants more work out of workers. Owners unknowingly or knowingly behave as if they own the people. This was literally true when slavery was widespread.

Even in western countries we find the unwritten understanding between Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt not to poach each other's engineers [1]. Where is a the "free hand of markets" here? Does it not limit the career opportunities for employees?

Activision Blizzard, one of the top AAA game developer had huge culture problems. There is a lawsuit as well [2]

How is it in the land of free and ideals of Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln get to a point where humans are treated like corporate property?

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2012/1/27/2753701/no-poach-scandal-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Department_of_Fair_...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com