The death of an employee of Ernst & Young (EY), a global financial services company, allegedly due to overwork, has sparked a new debate on the work culture in India’s big firms.
26-year-old Anna Sebastien Perrail worked as a chartered accountant at SR Batliboi, a member firm of EY Global in Pune, in the western state of Maharashtra.
After four months on the job, Ana Peraille died. Anna’s father told The News Minute that her death was due to ‘multiple problems including acid reflux, work stress, and workload’.
According to her mother Anita Augustine’s letter to the head of EY India, Anna had started working at EY Pune in March, but ‘the workload, new environment and long hours made her physically ill. , causing emotional and mental damage.’
Anita told how she took Anna to the doctor in July when she said she had been experiencing ‘chest pains’ for about a week.
The doctor prescribed Anna antacids and warned that she was ‘not getting enough sleep and eating late.’
Anita wrote that despite this, her daughter ‘worked late into the night, even on weekends, and did not breathe a sigh of relief.’
He wrote: ‘The End of Ego shines a light on a work culture that overvalues ​​work while neglecting the humans behind it.
“It’s not just about my daughter, it’s about every young professional employee who joins an EY company with hopes and dreams only to be crushed under the weight of unrealistic expectations.”
“Hopefully Anna’s death will serve as a wake-up call for EY.”
Anita said that no one from EY attended Anna’s last rites. He added that even after that he contacted the company management but did not get any response.
EY, on the other hand, said that ‘work pressure’ was not the cause of Anna’s death.
Rajeev Maimani, head of EY India, told The Indian Express: “We have around one lakh employees. There is no doubt that everyone has to work hard.
Anna worked with us for only four months. He was assigned work like any other employee. We do not believe that the pressure of work can kill them.
In a statement shared with , EY India said: ‘We are deeply saddened by Anna’s tragic and untimely death in July 2024 and our heartfelt sympathies go out to the bereaved family.’
The statement added: ‘Anna joined the audit team at SR Batliboi, a member firm of EY Global in Pune on March 18, 2024, for a short period of four months only.
His death is an irreparable loss to all of us. While no measure can compensate his family for the loss, we extended all possible support, as we always do in times of trouble, and will continue to do so.
The statement added: ‘We are taking the family’s letter very seriously and humbly.
“We value the well-being of all employees and will continue to seek ways to enhance and provide a healthy workplace for our 100,000 employees at EY member firms in India.”
Anna’s death and her mother’s letter sparked grief and anger online where industry professionals, including employees from EY, shared their experiences of unsuitable environments and workloads.
A co-worker claimed on Read It that they were informed of Anna’s death through a ‘centralized mail’ in which they issued a traditional short message with her LinkedIn photo and attempted to convey that That she was already suffering from an illness that worsened her condition.’
Sharing things like Anita’s letter, he wrote: ‘We work an average of 16 hours a day in the busy season and 12 hours a day in the non-busy season. No weekends or public holidays.
EY annually grants its employees a day off voluntarily for recuperation. And yes you guessed it right! Even this leave is not available.
We still work in the office that day! More work is the only way to progress, do it yourself and get others to do it.
An employee who worked at KPMG for four years said that he continued to work despite being infected with the coronavirus, and was unable to sit up straight because of fever and weakness.
“Their managers were told that I had not completed the work on that particular project even though I had submitted a Covid-positive test report,” he said.
Several other employees of the ‘Big Four’ accounting firms, Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and EY, took to social media to describe similar situations, detailing 14- to 18-hour work days when they were referred to as ‘sources’ rather than by their names and had little or no support from managers on how to deal with workload and stress.
EY India chief Rajeev Maimani’s response to Anna’s death has also been criticized online, with many citing industry leaders’ attitudes and past statements regarding employee welfare. So they did not play any special role.
Many shared Infosys co-founder Narayan Murthy’s October 2023 statement that India’s productivity was among the lowest in the world and that Indian workers needed 70 hours a week to develop the country. Must work.
Absence of employee protections and workplace pressures have long been a concern in India.
According to International Labor Organization data, 51 percent of India’s workforce logs more than 49 hours a week.
India is second only to Bhutan in terms of long working hours.
A report released in July by the Confederation of Indian Industries and digital healthcare platform MediBuddy shows that nearly 62 percent of Indian employees experience stress and pressure from work.
Fidel Sebastian, a labor lawyer at the NGO Naye Niti Foundation, told The Independent: “The important thing to remember here is that almost all entry-level employees are covered by the Industrial Disputes Act.”
Almost every employee, who is not in a supervisory role, is therefore classified as a ‘worker’ and the overtime rule applies to them.
“If it’s not paid overtime, it’s theft.”
According to the Factories Act of 1948 and the Minimum Wages Act of 1948 which are the laws relating to the working hours and overtime laws of an employee in India respectively, if one works more than eight to nine hours in a day or 48 in a week. Hour, they are entitled to double payment for the additional hours.
For exploited employees, Fidel Sebastian said they can discuss overtime pay internally with their management.
If they fail to do so and fear retaliation, employees are still protected. The employee can file his complaint with the Labor Commissioner who can decide how much extra overtime the employee gets and what penalty the firm has to pay.
Fidel Sebastian stressed the importance of the union. He said the best course of action for employees who feel they are being exploited is to try to register a union to negotiate collectively or officially raise demands.
Employees contacting management internally to negotiate overtime pay in the absence of a union must do so in writing, he said.
However, such complaints usually lead to retaliation and, in many cases, termination.
“A registered union that litigates or conciliates against the company will protect the employee from being dismissed for raising such demands as the management will have to seek the permission of the court or authority before such dismissal,” he said.
Shobha Karandlaje, India’s junior labor minister, wrote in a post on X that the ministry would “thoroughly investigate allegations of an unsafe and exploitative work environment.”
