SOL Pharmaceuticals Ltd has terminated the services of most of its field staff for holding two jobs, after the company itself urged them to join SOL Health Pharmacy Ltd. Those who did not accept the offer from SOL Health Pharmacy have not been paid their wages for the last two months.

The staff who joined SOL Health Pharmacy are in a quandary, as they they suddenly got letters from their previous employer implying that they had joined a rival, when they had assumed that the new company is a sister concern of the Hyderabad-based drugs manufacturer.

SOL Health Pharmacy was incorporated on September 21, 1995. Its directors are C Chandrasekhara Reddy, T Uttam Reddy and C Girija Reddy. All three are also on the board of SOL Pharmaceuticals, with Uttam Reddy as its managing director.

Neither managing director Uttam Reddy nor the personnel head of SOL Health Pharmacy - who invited the staff to switch companies - replied to repeated fax messages and telephone calls from The Financial Express about the status of the eponymous new company or of the staff.

SOL Pharmaceuticals has around 400 field staff, of which more than 350 have already been shunted into the new company. The 50-odd staff who did not join the new outfit are not being paid. Apart from these, there are another 600 working as temporary staff and they have been shifted to SOL Health Pharmacy.

On April 1, 1997, V Bhaskara Reddy, deputy general manager for personnel & administration of SOL Health Pharmacy, wrote to the field staff asking them to join his company.

Reddy's letter, although on the letterhead of SOL Health Pharmacy, began with "Dear colleagues", and said: "In a war, winning battalions are shifted from one front to the other to stop and conquer the enemy."

Reddy had earlier been with SOL Pharmaceuticals as senior manager (P&A) and later as general manager.

Aggrieved members of the field staff said most of them readily agreed to the offer as Reddy had been a familiar figure.

"Naturally most of the employees assumed it was a subsidiary or a sister concern of SOL Pharmaceuticals but nowhere are any details given. Apart from this invitation letter, the management kept on requesting us to join SOL Health Pharmacy," they said.

In April, things took a different turn. Employees of SOL Pharmaceuticals who had decided against joining the new outfit and those who had moved over received pay cheques from both the companies. But employees of SOL Pharmaceuticals returned SOL Health Pharmacy's offering and also vice-versa.

However, on May 24, 1997, SOL Pharmaceutical wrote to its employees saying that it had learnt from `reliable sources' that they have taken up appointment elsewhere.

The letter, from general manager (personnel) B Ramadhar Reddy, said: "It is learnt from reliable/authenticative sources that you have taken up appointment elsewhere. Meanwhile, we have dispatched April 1997 salary to you as we do not have this information."

SOL Pharmaceuticals also agreed to clear off the dues of those who have `taken up appointment elsewhere' by clearing their bonus and ex-gratia payment.

"SOL Pharmaceuticals called it the final settlement, which meant that they are severing all relation with the employees of SOL Health Pharmacy," sources said.

Employees said that last year, SOL Pharmaceuticals had agreed to clear in three instalments all dues on account of leave travel allowance, medical bills, expenses and incentives.

"However, in between this new company came into the scene and no one is aware of fate of the dues," they said.