
TinyOwl’s hostage crisis - r0h1n
http://www.medianama.com/2015/11/223-tinyowl-hostage-crisis/
======
ryandamm
Can I just say: as an American in the SF Bay Area... this article is extremely
_foreign_ to me. I don't mean the location or work, but the entire social-
political background.

Layoffs have some contractual basis for being paid, and even more, a social
expectation that it will be fulfilled...! There's some _social_ contract
around labor?!? (I've been at companies that went bust, got diddly-squat). The
police and _political parties ' representatives_ are present during the labor
standoff, but not to resolve it.

I'm not saying it's better or worse... partly it feels better: support for
workers; partly it feels worse (is it just me, or does the presence of the
police and politicians seem... odd, corrupt? perhaps this is just my cultural
myopia)... but the entire scene is just really hard for me to parse. And I
upvoted because this is absolutely fascinating to me; I want to hear more from
an Indian perspective. (For the record, I've been only once, for a few weeks
for a friend's wedding, so don't know anything about the situation but would
love to learn more.)

~~~
signal11
Generalizing a bit, the legal system isn't quite as efficient in India as in
the US or Western Europe. Disputes can take years or even decades[1] to
settle. This Bloomberg article[2] calls it "horribly dysfunctional" and having
worked there I agree. You do not want to go to court. There's many reasons for
this, there's about 14 judges per million people and the justice system is run
like it's 1940 - no computers mostly, massive piles of paper, etc.

The World Bank ranks India 178 out of 188 in contract enforcement[3] --
essentially if you have a dispute, especially a small one, you may be better
off cutting your losses. If you're up against someone with patronage/influence
your chances are even dimmer (which is why you need to have your own
patrons/influencers if you are serious about doing business in India, which
just perpetuates a bribes-and-corruption culture). It also causes people to
take matters into their own hands, because if you suspect your employer won't
pay your salary, you can't file a suit. It actually makes more sense to lock
him up (as long as he isn't harmed the likelihood of a criminal case is
remote) until he releases the cash.

For companies for whom this is feasible, one common workaround is to add
boilerplate to their contracts to be subject to Singapore courts for dispute
resolution (much faster!).

[1]
[https://www.google.com/search?q=court+case+taking+decades+in...](https://www.google.com/search?q=court+case+taking+decades+india)
[2] [http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-25/speeding-
up...](http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-25/speeding-up-indias-
courts) [3]
[http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/india/enf...](http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/india/enforcing-
contracts)

~~~
logfromblammo
So the Clark Griswold _Christmas Vacation_ plan?

I'll keep that in mind next time I don't even get a subscription to the Jam of
the Month club at the end of the year.

It may well be that India is bad for contract enforcement, but here in the
U.S., many of us don't even have a contract to enforce.

Last time my entire office was escorted out of the building by security, on 3
days notice and with no severance package, there wasn't even anyone around
that we could have taken hostage. It would have been a dream come true to be
able to mildly inconvenience the person most directly responsible for our
permanent layoffs for a couple of days, get a monetary concession, _and_ have
the cops and local political flacks on our side! Instead, all we got was a
fresh boot-print on our collective backsides.

