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US Agency Probes Workers' Bias Claims Against India's TCS

US Agency Probes Workers' Bias Claims Against India's TCS

Bloomberg17-04-2025

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is investigating dozens of American workers' allegations that India's biggest IT outsourcer, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., discriminated against them based on their race, age and national origin.
The former employees are largely professionals from non-South Asian ethnic backgrounds over the age of 40, who say the company targeted them for layoffs but spared Indian colleagues, some of whom were working on H-1B skilled worker visas. They began filing complaints against TCS in late 2023.

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CartCon 2025: Tariffs, turbulence and the future of resilient retail
CartCon 2025: Tariffs, turbulence and the future of resilient retail

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CartCon 2025: Tariffs, turbulence and the future of resilient retail

At second-annual CartCon conference in Napa Valley, CA, the tone was electric with anticipation but also laced with urgency. Billed as a summit for the company's expansive ecosystem of brands, vendors and strategists, the event served as both a product showcase and a pressure valve. Nowhere was that tension more visible than during one of the conference's hardest-hitting panels, a deep dive into the complexities of tariff policy and its ripple effects on global sourcing, consumer pricing and retail resilience. The panel consisted of three voices with rare insight into the collision of policy and commerce: Chris Smith, president of Summit Global Strategies; Tim Manning, former White House supply chain coordinator under President Joe Biden; and Nick Stachel, logistics strategy adviser at Izba Consulting. What followed was not a high-level overview, but a granular exploration of the legal, political and operational forces shaping how, and where, products are made, moved and sold. From globalization to geo-economics Smith opened the discussion by tracing the historical arc of U.S. trade policy. For decades following World War II, American trade strategy revolved around multilateralism. The U.S. saw global trade not just as an economic imperative but as a geopolitical tool, creating allies, raising standards of living and preventing conflict. But in 2016, that long-standing consensus fractured. The bipartisan abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership signaled a sharp pivot. As Smith explained, the political center collapsed under the weight of the 'China Shock,' a term describing the decimation of American manufacturing towns due to offshoring. Smith described President Donald Trump's tariff policy as a psychological reset. Before Trump, U.S. tariffs averaged around 2%. Within months, they jumped to 18% in key categories. This wasn't just an economic strategy, it was anchoring. 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Originally designed as a tool for national security sanctions, IEEPA has been repurposed by the Trump administration to enact sweeping tariffs with little congressional oversight. Manning described the legal and logistical chaos for businesses from these tactics. In just six weeks, the Trump administration issued 17 executive orders using IEEPA authority, stripping trade policy of its usual predictability and process. For businesses, this has been catastrophic. Sourcing strategies built over years have unraveled in days. 'We're in a volatile environment,' Manning said. The cost of doing business now includes factoring in the potential for abrupt, unexplained swings in tariff exposure. Long-term investments have become high-risk bets, and in many cases, they're simply not being made. On-the-ground retail strategy Bringing the policy talk down to the warehouse floor, Stachel outlined how brands are actually coping with this new reality. 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With businesses unable to predict future policy, many are frozen. Manning advised attendees to monitor key macroeconomic signals, including treasury bond activity, consumer confidence indices and safety stock drawdowns. Executive orders posted on he added, are the best early indicators of a sudden policy shift. What retailers are saying – and doing The audience at CartCon also offered candid perspectives. Through real-time polling, attendees offered a rare window into how brands are navigating the chaos. Asked what recent policy had most affected their supply chains, 68% cited China tariffs, with an additional 24% naming de minimis enforcement, or stricter checks on duty-free, low-value imports. In a sign of just how volatile the environment has become, 64% said they revisit their sourcing strategies quarterly. And nearly half, 47%, have responded by raising prices. Twenty-nine percent have changed sourcing countries, while 18% are simply eating the cost. 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The post CartCon 2025: Tariffs, turbulence and the future of resilient retail appeared first on FreightWaves. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Why Elon Musk turned against Trump's $5 trillion mega tax and spending bill
Why Elon Musk turned against Trump's $5 trillion mega tax and spending bill

CNBC

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  • CNBC

Why Elon Musk turned against Trump's $5 trillion mega tax and spending bill

President Donald Trump is pushing to pass a sweeping tax and spending bill by July 4, but the proposal is already sparking fierce internal GOP debate. The bill combines 2017 tax cut extensions with new Trump-era proposals, including deductions on American-made auto loans and changes to child tax credits. But not everyone is on board. Elon Musk has launched a high-profile feud with Trump over the bill, and key Republican senators are warning that the bill could add trillions to the national debt.

With workplace incivility on the rise, these companies are trying harder to bring workers together
With workplace incivility on the rise, these companies are trying harder to bring workers together

Miami Herald

time17 minutes ago

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Linda Peterson spent years working in salons where she didn't feel valued. So when she set out to open her own salon, she knew it had to be different, starting with a big break room where employees could gather to decompress and talk openly. "I know I don't make money in my break room, but what it did is it created a culture in which people could have conversations," said Peterson, who owns Beau Monde Salon in Burnsville, Minnesota. "And it's really cool, because you get to hear different points of view on things, and it never gets heated. They have a great conversation and then they learn from each other and they just go back to work, doing what they love." Beau Monde is bucking a national trend. Workplace incivility, from harsh emails to physical violence, is on the rise, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Employees reported over 20% more uncivil interactions in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the prior year, when the organization launched its Civility Index. Nationwide political divisions and deteriorating discourse seem to be bleeding into the office. More than half of U.S. workers believe American society is uncivil, SHRM reported, and differing views on political and social issues were top contributors to the uptick in workplace incivility. "With the state of the world, I think even beyond the country, there's just a lot of volatility," said Anna Deley, talent management and regional general agent at Deley Organization-Globe Life in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. That volatility has real costs. Reduced employee productivity and absenteeism due to incivility costs U.S. businesses about $2 billion a day total, according to SHRM. "It's no longer something that's floating around in the background. We actually view this as a crisis that workers and workplaces need to address," said Jim Link, SHRM's chief human resources officer. "There are societal divides out there, and they have a deep impact in our workplaces and, more broadly perhaps, in our communities at large." Company leaders say they've worked to foster a culture where employees feel seen and heard and where tough, respectful conversations are encouraged. The first step? Hiring the right people. Derek Freese, executive vice president at Award Staffing, said the Edina, Minnesota-based company intentionally hires people who don't have previous staffing agency experience. It's a different approach, he said, when economic uncertainty is making it easy for employers "to fall back on the transactional nature of hiring" and opt for the safe choice. "Our mantra and our philosophy is the résumé and the job description is about 40% of what we're hiring for," Freese said. "The other 60% is ... the characteristics, it's the human experience." Once those new hires are in the door, there are regular opportunities to connect with other employees. Once a week, Award closes all its office locations and brings everyone to headquarters for a "better together day" with food and activities. Other top employers are taking a similar approach. The Deley Organization offers training and support for new employees working toward insurance licensure, including those who want to get licensed in multiple states, Deley said. State General Agent Chad Deley is available to employees round the clock, Anna Deley said. While there's plenty of scheduling flexibility "so you can still make your daughter's dance recital," she said, there's also a physical office space for employees who want to meet in person. "We want to make sure everyone feels included, supported and heard," Deley said. Edina-based FRSecure has helped employees get to know each other amid fast growth and virtual onboarding, said President Oscar Minks. Staffers get paired up as "hacker buddies," he said, and monthly mental health bingo encourages employees to reach out to co-workers or friends they haven't connected with in a while. Employees and their spouses get to attend a big, all-expenses-paid company party every year. "On top of all those initiatives, the most important thing for me is everybody feels like they belong here," Minks said. "And everybody feels like they're cared for; we have compassion for you and we want you to be successful." When problems do come up, company leaders said, they aim to lead by example and tackle them head-on. "It's our responsibility as leaders to give (employees) the voice, the space, the guidance to address their concerns," Freese said. "If we don't, or we don't understand what they are or what they look like, they're going to quit." At Beau Monde, Peterson said she often participates in employee conversations. When she opened the salon, she wanted her office to adjoin the break room so she could easily chime in - and make sure things stay civil. When politics started coming up, Peterson said, "I told all of them, you know, it's part of our world and we need to discuss it and if you guys can talk about it in a good way, great, but if you start feeling like it's causing tension, that conversation needs to end." After consulting with FRSecure's employee experience committee, Minks said he decided to address the national pushback against diversity efforts with the staff. He wanted to make it clear the company's culture wasn't changing, he said. "We just decided to take it head-on at one of our all-company quarterly meetings, and just really give a message of reassurance that for us, this idea of diversity really matters," Minks said. "I've always just been a believer that if everyone who's on our, say, technical team or consulting team is from the same background, from the same space, and they have the same experiences, then we never give ourselves the ability to evolve and grow." Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.

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