An investigation into work conditions at an Ernst & Young (EY) office in western India where a young employee died of alleged overwork has exposed a 17-year lapse in obtaining a state permit that caps how many hours employees can be on the job.
Anna Sebastian Perayil, 26, who was an audit and assurance executive at EY, one of the Big Four accounting firm, died from cardiac arrest which her mother, Anita Augustine, attributes to an "overwhelming workload" at a company that "glorified overwork." It was Perayil's death that triggered a federal government investigation into employee welfare at the office in Pune.
Soon after Shailendra Pol, Additional Labor Commissioner for the Indian state of Maharashtra, began the investigation, he noted that EY's registration under the state's Shops and Establishments Act was not current. The permit is required to help regulate how many hours an employee works – nine hours per day and 48 hours per week.
While EY had applied for the registration in February 2024, it was rejected because the company had not applied since 2007. The office was given a total of seven days to address its non-compliance.
If a serious injury or death were to occur while the office had no permit, it could lead to a fine of up to 500,000 rupees ($5,979) or up to six months in prison.
Pol's team is looking for specific information from the accounting firm, like employee hour logs, that might explain whether Perayil was overworked.
According to Reuters, EY said in a statement that it was "providing its full cooperation to the Ministry of Labour in its investigation."
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