Moonlighting Not Ethically Right For Full-Time Employees: IBM MD Sandip Patel

On Monday, Infosys has sent an official email to its employees, asserting that dual employment or 'moonlighting' is not allowed

Amid the ongoing debate on moonlighting in India, US-based Cloud Major IBM on Wednesday made it clear that the practice is not ethical and the company does not promote such behaviour at workplace, news agency IANS reported.

Sandip Patel, managing director, IBM India, said that the company's position is exactly that of the overall industry in the country. “All of our workers when they are employed, they sign an agreement which says that they are going to be working full-time for IBM. So moonlighting is not ethically right for them to get into,” he said, while adding, “That’s our position now and you’ve already heard the industry position.”

Moonlighting allows employees to work outside their primary working hours.

According to the report, some start-ups and unicorns such as Swiggy have encouraged the practice, while most of the traditional companies are calling it cheating.

On Monday, Infosys has sent an official email to its employees, asserting that dual employment or 'moonlighting' is not allowed. In a strong and firm message to employees, India's second-largest IT services firm, Infosys. The company has warned that any violation of contract clauses will trigger disciplinary action "which could even lead to termination of employment".

"No two-timing, no moonlighting", Infosys said in an internal memo, adding that it "strictly discourages dual employment".

Recently, Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji said that the concept of a second job in addition to the regular job is "plain and simple" cheating.

"There is a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry. This is cheating, plain and simple," he emphasised.

Meanwhile, Pune-based union Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) has strongly condemned the "threatening email" sent by Infosys to employees. The union has argued that moonlighting "is not feasible" for a number of reasons.

"Aadhaar card and PAN card are now mandatory for joining any company. The government has also linked the Aadhaar card to the Employees Provident Fund account and each employee has a unique Universal Account Number (UAN) for the provident fund," Harpreet Singh Saluja, president of NITES, said, adding it is not possible for two companies to submit an employee’s provident fund contribution in one month.