Employee Protests rock Technopark
By Sunil Sharma

The peace and tranquility of the Technopark campus in Trivandrum, Kerala was rocked on Thursday when the employees of an animation company staged demonstrations against the management’s decision to send some of them on leave as part of cost cutting measures. Employees at the Toonz Animation studio in Technopark allege that this forced leave is a prelude to sacking them.

But the Toonz management has assured them that this is a temporary resort to tide over the tough times the company is going through.

The company had in January implemented a 20 to 25 per cent cut in the salary to overcome the financial crisis. P. Jayakumar, CEO, Toonz Animation, said the company had asked only 20 employees to go on leave after several projects got delayed in the wake of funding restrictions. “These staff will remain on our rolls and will be absorbed once their leave period is over.” But the employees are not in a mood to buy this argument. According to employees who didn’t want to be identified, over 150 of them including several in senior positions have been forced to go on leave over the past six months apart from about 20 performance related sacking.

However, the management has denied this allegation saying that they have requested less than five percent of the employees to go on 3 to 6 months leave. As the blame game continues, it’s a harrowing time for those who have to sit at home at such a short notice.

Toonz Animation is a leading production house with about 500 employees and has tie-ups with several Hollywood studios. Some of their recent productions were Wolverine and the X Men, Dragonlance & Mostly Ghostly (US), Freefonix & Finley (Europe) and Tenali Raman & Hanuman (Asia).

Protests in Technopark over layoffs are not new thing in Kerala where red flags fly high but such incidents will only damage the image of Kerala as an investment destination.