Wife’s Battle With the Company Of Her Late Hubby Worked

The pandemic left many of us unemployed leaving us wondering if unemployment will be the next pandemic. The gigantic job losses saw many devastating stories and one among them is of a woman whose husband died of COVID-19 two months after he lost his job.

The woman named Kameshwari, a former teacher is now fighting a unique battle with the company her late husband used to work for. She demanded compensation and insurance benefits the family would have been entitled to had.

Kameshwari’s late husband Ramesh Subramanian was 48 and he worked as a Project Manager at Synamedia Pvt Ltd in Chennai. He died in June, less than two months after he was allegedly forced to resign by the company.

His wife says that on April 8, HR contacted Ramesh and told him he had to resign as part of their retrenchment drive. It is said that her husband pleaded with them to allow him to serve the mandatory two-month notice period as he could find a new job in the meantime.

But the company had asked him to submit papers or face termination. According to Kameshwari, her husband handed in his resignation on April 13, and three days later, he was relieved of his duties. She said Ramesh used to earn Rs 30 lakh a year, and he was traumatised after losing his job.

Soon after he also contracted the novel virus, making things worse. The family spent Rs 18 lakh for his treatment, but unfortunately, Ramesh died on June 11. She argues that if he had been allowed to serve notice, he would have received insurance benefits and the family would have got more than Rs 1.5 crores.

Kameshwari has now sent a legal notice to the company demanding fair compensation. She further added that situations like these destroy a family and she does not want this to happen to anyone else. The company has agreed to pay only a donation of Rs 2 lakh, but the family has not accepted.

Ramesh’s brother Kishore says his brother was forced to resign. “If he had resigned on his own without serving the two-month notice, wouldn’t the company have asked him to pay two months’ salary? He further recalled how his brother cried about the pending EMIs? “We are only demanding what he was deprived of. Why didn’t Synamedia let him be on their rolls for two months,” Kishore Subramanian questioned.

When asked, the company said that he was never asked to resign forcefully but he himself left the company for a “a better opportunity.” When asked why the company did not make him pay two months’ salary, the company’s senior HR person Rajesh Kumaraswamy said that they had paid a four-month salary to Ramesh.