Former Employee Files Discrimination Case Against Wipro in U.S.

A former employee of Indian technology firm Wipro has filed a discrimination case against the company in Colorado, United States. Rex Trewin has alleged in his lawsuit that the company has engaged in a practice of systematic termination of its American employees, in favor of Indian employees.

Trewin said that his contribution was ignored by Wipro and that he was penalized for emphasizing on the importance of conforming to employment laws and regulations.

His employment was subsequently terminated by Wipro  on March 17, 2016, Trewin, who worked as a global university recruiting manager at the firm, says in the complaint. He has demanded a jury trial on a number of issues, which, he says, had an impact on his employment and played a part in him getting sacked, the Times of India reported.

Refusing to comment on the pending litigation, Wipro said that the company is “committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity and provides all our employees with a work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment of any kind. We will vigorously defend against these meritless allegations in court.”

Trewin joined the IT firm in 2010 and has an experience of 20 years in campus recruitment. In his complaint, he claimed that he was assigned more responsibilities without adequate manpower or resources after he complained to his reporting authority. Trewin said while he was working with Wipro, his responsibilities grew from recruiting students in the United States who were undergraduate to recruitment of MBA graduate students across the globe, the publication reported.

Trewin claims that he was fired soon after he resumed work after taking a leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in November 2015.

“Defendant (Wipro) later changed the justification for termination by alleging to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that Trewin’s termination was a result of ‘integrity’ issues surrounding his attendance at the Midwest strategy case competition at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign,” the complaint said, the TOI reported. It added: “Defendant has engaged in a pattern and practice of the systematic termination of its American employees, in favor of Indian employees.”

In a similar case earlier, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. had said that the civil rights lawsuit filed against the company by American workers who accuse it of bias against employees who aren’t Indian, is wrong. The laid-off employees allege that they were fired and replaced by “less qualified” South Asian employees.

In December last year, California judge rejected a request from Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS) to dismiss a 2015 lawsuit accusing it of violating anti-discrimination laws by favoring South Asians. The case was expanded into a class action lawsuit.