KARNATAKA State IT and ITeS Employees Union (KITU) demanded the government to invoke the provisions of Industrial Employment Standing Orders (IESO) Act, and suitably adopt it to the requirements of the IT, ITeS and knowledge industry in the state. It demanded that the regulations of conditions of service governing the IT, ITeS, knowledge industries etc to be defined with the participation of employers and employees.

Attending a tripartite meeting with NASSCOM and Karnataka labour department on January 28, the KITU urged the government, not to extend the exemption under Section 14 of Industrial Employment Standing Orders (IESO) Act, 1946 to IT, ITeS, animation, gaming, computer graphics, telecom, BPO, KPO, other knowledge-based industries establishments.

The meeting was called by Amlan Aditya Biswas, secretary, labour department, at Vikasa Soudha in Bengaluru,  to discuss the exemption given for IT and ITeS sector from IESO Act. On behalf of KITU, the only trade union registered in IT and IT-enabled service sector (ITeS) in Karnataka, president VJK Nair and one of the secretaries, Sooraj Nidiyanga, attended the meeting.

In 2014, Karnataka government exempted these sectors from the provisions of Standing Orders Act with some conditions, for a period of five years which ended on January 25, 2019. In the meeting, KITU demanded that the regulations of conditions of service governing the IT, ITeS, knowledge industries etc shall be defined in precision with participation of employers and employees in the process and it can be done only by invoking the provisions of IESO Act, and suitably adopting it to the requirements of the IT, ITeS and knowledge industry.

KITU demanded the government not to extend the order, without first satisfying themselves whether the conditions under which the exemption was granted in 2014 had been complied with. It proposed that the government may set up a committee of employers, employees and government officials to obtain facts relating to the compliance with the mandates and further consider preparing a suitable draft to evolve the service conditions in various classes and consider the proposals that KITU is expected to prepare and submit for scrutiny, justifiable alterations and adoption or the government alternately appoint a committee to go into the question and evolve a suitable draft standing orders and notify the same.

KITU, which obtained registration on November 7, 2017, was continuously campaigning for application of Standing Orders Act in IT, ITeS sector. On January 3, 2019, KITU submitted a memorandum to Amlan Aditya Biswas, on this issue. It organised a bike rally with hundreds of IT employees on January 6, demanding the same.