Cognizant, the New-Jersey headquartered IT services provider, has been making massive changes in the ways it used to handle its operations. The company has been going through a major transformation under its CEO Brian Humphries, who took charge in April 2019. Under Humphries, the company announced its plan to remove 10,000-12,000 mid-to-senior level associates globally, to ensure the company’s profitability.
As per a media report, the number of senior executives listed in its annual filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission dropped to 11 in 2019, from 18 in 2018.
Now, reports are around that over 3,000 employees of Cognizant have filed a class-action lawsuit against the company for allegedly causing psychological trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The employees had been working as a content moderators for Facebook. It all started when Cognizant made an announcement in October 2019 announcing a planned restructuring of the business and a round of layoffs, including its plans to exit its content moderation business with Facebook. The move was expected to impact around 6000 employees engaged with the content moderation business. The company, in its earlier statement, had said that they will be working with their partners to identify ways to transition the roles to other vendors to minimize any impact to the associates.
Cognizant was served the initial summons on February 11. The plaintiffs, Debrynna Garrett and Clifford Jeudy, then filed an amended class-action complaint on March 7 and demanded a jury trial. The complaint said the claims exceed $5,000,000 in the aggregate. The class members are citizens of Florida and Arizona.
The amended complaint makes claims for intentional tort – or deliberate concealment or misrepresentation of known danger and negligence. The complainants also alleged that members suffered PTSD and other psychological disorders, physical injuries including heart attack, stroke, and epilepsy, lost pay, lost future earning capacity, emotional distress and loss of enjoyment of life.
The complaint seeks a medical monitoring fund for the benefit of affected people. It also seeks compensatory damages, including but not limited to lost pay, medical expenses, lost future earning capacity, emotional distress and loss of enjoyment of life and reasonable litigation expenses and attorney’s fees. The affected moderators have requested baseline screening, assessments, and diagnostic examinations to assist in diagnosing adverse health effects, secondary interventions to reduce the risks of PTSD, and tertiary interventions to reduce symptoms of those suffering from PTSD, and evidence based treatments to help individuals recover.
This is not the first time the company is under scrutiny. In the past, Cognizant has been accused of tax evasion, an enquiry on illegal construction in India, and charges of bribery in the US. The company also faced enormous pressure from activist investor Elliott Management Corp for a total shake up in the company. These incidents are definitely leaving a dent on the company’s image.
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