It has been approximately two months since the first case of COVID-19 was detected in India. Every day, approximately 100 new cases are being registered related to COVID-19 patients. Until now, more than five thousand cases have been noted and several hundred have been cured and sent to their homes.
There have been many discussions and arguments taking place related to the consequences of COVID-19 worldwide, economic disaster being one of them. Experts from all around the world are worried about the forthcoming recession that Corona will leave behind. Employees of MSMEs are treated no less than a labourer. Today, in this article, I will only discuss what happens to employees who work in a start-up or a small company that has recently started.
Let’s begin the story.
I work in an education-related startup currently based in Lucknow which provides educational solutions in terms of answers and articles. This is just like writing a solution for any particular question and selling it to the client for some amount on the client’s demand. I do not know how many millions do my directors earn from this but I could never earn an amount greater than 20K (exaggerated amount).
After PM Narendra Modi announced a lockdown for 21 days, the first people who were affected and touched insanely were my directors. This lockdown took away their peace and us, the employees, could not understand what happened to them. They were reacting insanely. Although, before the PM’s announcement, we were asked to work from home with our full capacity.
Our capacity was regulated by our directors. We were more like a stove and less like an employee. According to their need, they demanded work and cooked their desire on us. Sometimes, it was double-triple the manpower than was present in the office. We always delivered every project on time by working extra hard and by giving extra time assuming that if the office grows, we’ll grow too (and our salary).
But on the first day of the lockdown, they called us individually and told us to complete the given task on the same day. Let me tell you one thing, never assume your senior to be your friend or anything friendly, their friendship is way more dangerous than that of a Police. Police are unreasonably projected as evil. The real evils are they, the corporate bosses who take their employees for granted. So, we checked our mail and find out that they want us to complete a three-days task in one day. We used to do 40-45 files on an everyday basis in the office and they gave us 120-127 files each to work from home.
When we told them that this assigned task was impossible to deliver in the given time, they told us that this task is an easy task and takes less time than usual and ignored us. We felt heartbroken, poorest of the poor who joined this company due to some responsibilities and problems on the shoulders. We tried to convince them that, “Sir, please provide us at least two days to complete this task as it cannot be done in the given time”. They just went deaf and dumb.
They knew that we needed this job extensively. We didn’t have any other options. They knew that we had 24 hours. They wanted all of that from us. We understood this. We always knew. We were aware of their “vultureism”. We had no options left except working for most of the 24 hours. We worked, all of us, and delivered the work on time. In the process, an employee of our company was fired because he resisted taking the extra load. They simply and mercilessly fired him without any pay.
When all this was happening, an echo that was repeating in my ears was that “Private companies, please do not deduct the salary of your employees who cannot deliver work”. This statement was spoken by our Prime Minister to our great corporate bosses. But I think, these are the sounds which only sound nice and don’t exist in the real world. Or this statement was delivered for the “employees” of companies but we were impecunious machines and disadvantaged people who are made only to wok and not to demand anything.
In my lifetime, I had never understood Karl Marx as much as I do now.