Back to the age of "BONDED" Labours

In ancient times there was practice of bonded labour by feudal lords. These bonded labours had little or very less understanding of the agreement that these powerful feudal lords forced them to sign.

Now comes the present times where companies use bonds to basically restrict the movement of employees from one company to another. A bond is generally demanded from employees to have a binding effect with the employer to work without leaving, resigning and abandoning the employment as it may affect the working of the company .These bonds are mainly aimed at entry level employees. Similar to feudal age ignorance or lack of understanding of these bonds are exploited by the “powerful” companies. Another factor that is exploited is lack of bargaining power that entrants possess. So bonds can be termed as MODERN FEUDALISM or MODIFIED FEUDALISM, glorified by various companies.

Pros of BONDS: Bonds are justified to the extent that it helps the company to recover the cost of training the employee .Company nowadays spend a considerable amount of money to train the employees and unless it able to recover the cost through substantial period of employment, it is justifiable to enforce the bonds.

Cons of the bond: Bonds can seriously hamper the growth prospect of one’s career because breaking the bondage might snip u off all the earnings during that period and effectively rendering as one worked for ‘free”.

Now bonds are basically a duel between individual and companies, and obvious winners are later with a battery of lawyers carefully drafting a “disguised “bond, in which the employees more than often end up paying more than what it meets to the eye in the bond. The question is the only training provided by the company matters, not the kind of efforts put by the employees. How these bonds can justify the individualism of employees? If an employee gets opportunity outside the organisation after training, it cannot be wholly attributed to the training only. But by enforcing a bond company tries to justify that whatever one gains in these years is completely their “effort” and money.

So bonds can be seen as another form of powerful party having their way, no matter what impact it might have on employees.