When the CIO of Molina Healthcare fired 40 IT employees last year, he told them it was because of financial, not performance, reasons. For 18 of the employees, that wasn't a sufficient answer, and they sued the CIO (who has since left), Molina and IT outsourcer Cognizant Technology Solutions, reports Patrick Thibodeau at Computerworld.

The CIO at the time of the layoffs, Amir Desai, is accused of hiring and promoting "only Indian nationals to management positions," and the terminated employees are charging that they were discriminated against on the basis of national origin. Desai's attorney denies the allegation and claims that only two out of six IT managers who reported to him were of Indian descent.

Desai "was trying to maintain quality and keep IT costs down at the direction of his superiors. To accomplish this, Mr. Desai worked with his managers to identify processes and projects that could be outsourced at a lower cost," his attorney, Edward Raskin, told Computerworld. "The question was not: 'Whose job can we eliminate and replace with a contractor?' The question was: What processes are being done in-house that could be outsourced at a lower overall cost without sacrificing quality of efficiency?"

The plaintiffs contend that Cognizant brought workers to Molina to learn its IT processes, and then their jobs were moved offshore. They said they had been told that their jobs would shift to new technologies and developments.

Cognizant started with a small presence at Molina, supplementing the internal IT team, but around 2007, the number of contractors grew while immediate IT managers were let go or left on their own, some of the employees told Computerworld. The company's culture changed as the number of contractors grew, the terminated employees claim. At times, discussions during meetings would shift to an Indian language, making the others feel isolated.

"I've been to several meetings where it started off in English and then one of the Indian directors would start talking in Hindi, and then all the other Indians will start talking in the same language," said one of the plaintiffs. "And then you would have to say 'hello, hello, we don't understand.'"

The company maintains that the charges are based on "falsehoods and malicious gossip." Cognizant claims that the lawsuit is without merit and it has said it will contest it.

For more:
- see Patrick Thibodeau's article at Computerworld

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