Cooked Crack Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 Quote PARIS — In their blue blazers and tight haircuts, the aging men look uncomfortable in the courtroom dock. And for good reason: they are accused of harassing employees so relentlessly that workers ended up killing themselves. The men — all former top executives at France’s giant telecom company — wanted to downsize the business by thousands of workers a decade ago. But they couldn’t fire most of them. The workers were state employees — employees for life — and therefore protected. So the executives resolved to make life so unbearable that the workers would leave, prosecutors say. Instead, at least 35 employees — workers’ advocates say nearly double that number — committed suicide, feeling trapped, betrayed and despairing of ever finding new work in France’s immobile labor market. Today the former top executives of France Télécom — once the national phone company, and now one of the nation’s biggest private enterprises, Orange — are on trial for “moral harassment.” It is the first time that French bosses, caught in the vise of France’s strict labor protections, have been prosecuted for systemic harassment that led to worker deaths. Quote If convicted, the ex-executives face a year in jail and a $16,800 fine. But even before the trial wraps up on July 12, with a verdict sometime later, it has become a landmark in the country’s often hostile relations between labor and management. Quote Weeks of wrenching testimony about despairing employees who hanged themselves, immolated themselves, or threw themselves out of windows, under trains and off bridges and highway overpasses, have suggested that the former executives went very far in “pushing the company into the new century,” as corporate strategy dictated. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/world/europe/france-telecom-trial.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceman Spiff Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 I'd like to read it, but it's behind a paywall. And unfortunately the NYT picks up incognito mode. Gotta believe that something should happen to the bosses. I don't believe fines/sanctions are enough, I am assuming they have enough money that anything levied towards them would be an inconvenience and nothing more. Jail time? A year seems a bit light. Everyone's worked for a douchebag boss that they can't stand to be around. The guy I used to work for was a textbook narcissist, so I left. Couldn't take it anymore. Did he do anything intentionally to make me want to leave? No, he was just himself and that was unbearable enough. I can't imagine a boss actively working against their own employees to make them want to leave, I think there should be some punishment for that. That's why I'd like to read the article, I'd like to know what they did specifically to make their lives so awful. At the same time, I'd want to know why these people felt that the only way out was suicide. The first quote says "despairing of ever finding new work in France's immobile labor market." Did they really think that they couldn't find a job outside of what they were doing? Did the bosses blackball them from working for other companies? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Destino Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 Do they still have any of those famous guillotines? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cooked Crack Posted July 10, 2019 Author Share Posted July 10, 2019 20 minutes ago, Spaceman Spiff said: I'd like to read it, but it's behind a paywall. And unfortunately the NYT picks up incognito mode. Gotta believe that something should happen to the bosses. I don't believe fines/sanctions are enough, I am assuming they have enough money that anything levied towards them would be an inconvenience and nothing more. Jail time? A year seems a bit light. That's why I'd like to read the article, I'd like to know what they did specifically to make their lives so awful. At the same time, I'd want to know why these people felt that the only way out was suicide. The first quote says "despairing of ever finding new work in France's immobile labor market." Did they really think that they couldn't find a job outside of what they were doing? Did the bosses blackball them from working for other companies? My workaround to the pay wall is opening in Firefox incognito then switching to reading mode. They making me get my MacGyver on. France has really high unemployment rate. These jobs are jobs for life. You lose your job probably wouldn't find another one. Especially one for life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popeman38 Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 So the company was ordered to go private in 2003. Yet every employee of the company was a state employee and protected from termination FOR LIFE? How in the holy hell is that a private company? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elessar78 Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 1 hour ago, Spaceman Spiff said: That's why I'd like to read the article, I'd like to know what they did specifically to make their lives so awful. At the same time, I'd want to know why these people felt that the only way out was suicide. The first quote says "despairing of ever finding new work in France's immobile labor market." Did they really think that they couldn't find a job outside of what they were doing? Did the bosses blackball them from working for other companies? The labor market is different in France, to say the least. It isn't easy to be fired and can be equally as hard to find a new gig. 10 minutes ago, Popeman38 said: So the company was ordered to go private in 2003. Yet every employee of the company was a state employee and protected from termination FOR LIFE? How in the holy hell is that a private company? I'm sure they came up with some grandfathering type clause in the transition docs. You just have to look at this without American biases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CousinsCowgirl84 Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 1 hour ago, Cooked Crack said: My workaround to the pay wall is opening in Firefox incognito then switching to reading mode. They making me get my MacGyver on. France has really high unemployment rate. These jobs are jobs for life. You lose your job probably wouldn't find another one. Especially one for life. Broken system. This is on the government... 14 minutes ago, Popeman38 said: So the company was ordered to go private in 2003. Yet every employee of the company was a state employee and protected from termination FOR LIFE? How in the holy hell is that a private company? Sounds like the government wanted to shirk it’s responsibilities... life long employment guaranteed is bound to to set up failures like this. 6 minutes ago, Elessar78 said: It isn't easy to be fired and can be equally as hard to find a new gig. The first quality is probably causal to the second quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoCalMike Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 Our opinions on France's labor system aside, this story is really about bosses/management harassing workers (allegedly on purpose ) so consistently that they turned to self-harm/suicide, in an attempt (I assume) to drive them to quit their jobs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CousinsCowgirl84 Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 Just now, NoCalMike said: Our opinions on France's labor system aside, this story is really about bosses/management harassing workers (allegedly on purpose ) so consistently that they turned to self-harm/suicide, in an attempt (I assume) to drive them to quit their jobs. What specifically did they do? https://www.expatica.com/fr/employment/employment-law/french-labour-laws-working-time-and-leave-104533/ they only work 35 hours a week, are entitled to 20 minute breaks every 6 hours, can only work 10 hours a day, get a month of paid vacation, are required to have 35 consecutive hours of time off, and receive full benefits. what hardship are we talking about here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoCalMike Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 1 minute ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said: What specifically did they do? https://www.expatica.com/fr/employment/employment-law/french-labour-laws-working-time-and-leave-104533/ they only work 35 hours a week, are entitled to 20 minute breaks every 6 hours, can only work 10 hours a day, get a month of paid vacation, are required to have 35 consecutive hours of time off, and receive full benefits. what hardship are we talking about here? Don't know. I haven't read the article. My reply was meant to be posed as a question. What did they do? That is the question. I don't think the employees' actions were taking place for fun though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wrilbo67 Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 2 hours ago, Elessar78 said: I'm sure they came up with some grandfathering type clause in the transition docs. You just have to look at this without American biases. I work for a company that's half-German and the employment contract signed between the company and the employee when the hiring occurred is like gold. My company has, in the past ~20 years, gone from private, to IPO, to fully acquired by a different public company, to spun off back into a private company, and some of my European coworkers have some sweetheart golden parachutes waiting for them depending on when they joined. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mooka Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 2 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said: What specifically did they do? https://www.expatica.com/fr/employment/employment-law/french-labour-laws-working-time-and-leave-104533/ they only work 35 hours a week, are entitled to 20 minute breaks every 6 hours, can only work 10 hours a day, get a month of paid vacation, are required to have 35 consecutive hours of time off, and receive full benefits. what hardship are we talking about here? I'm assuming some kind of hardship... as they killed themselves. One of them set himself on fire in front of work. I can name any number of labor laws in the US, doesn't mean companies don't break them all the time and exploit their workers. https://truthout.org/articles/suicide-as-corporate-murder-france-telecom-on-trial/ Quote Former CEO Didier Lombard and six other executives are accused not of targeting employees individually, but of implementing tactics across the whole company based on what prosecutors are calling psychological bullying. Some employees were forced to change jobs or move to new cities on an almost continuous basis. Many highly skilled engineers and technicians were demoted to jobs working on the phones in call-centers. Others received a barrage of emails from their managers suggesting that they leave the company to open a pizzeria or a rural guest house. Others still were intimidated, belittled or verbally abused. Many employees report that they were “forgotten” and left behind in an empty office when staff had moved on to a new site. None of this sounds like something I would kill myself over but I see people get pretty ****ing stressed at work. Things pile up and bad atmosphere starts to overwhelm you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CousinsCowgirl84 Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 38 minutes ago, Mooka said: I'm assuming some kind of hardship... as they killed themselves. One of them set himself on fire in front of work. I can name any number of labor laws in the US, doesn't mean companies don't break them all the time and exploit their workers. Yea, if labor laws were broken then the executives are responsible. But it says harassment... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceman Spiff Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 6 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said: Yea, if labor laws were broken then the executives are responsible. But it says harassment... Is harassment not part of a labor law? Not trying to be a smartass, genuinely curious. Can't imagine it wouldn't be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sacks 'n' Stuff Posted July 11, 2019 Share Posted July 11, 2019 This happens all the time in America too. Company wants to get rid of an employee but they don’t want to be on the hook for unemployment so they make their job as ****ty as possible in order to try to get them to leave. Think about all the ****ty things your boss could do to make your life hell that wouldn’t violate any laws. It’s not that hard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CousinsCowgirl84 Posted July 11, 2019 Share Posted July 11, 2019 1 hour ago, Spaceman Spiff said: Is harassment not part of a labor law? Not trying to be a smartass, genuinely curious. Can't imagine it wouldn't be. It depends, i don’t think what is described in the article would be illegal here. They made them do menial jobs, left them in empty offices, and made them move a lot... the think about moving a lot, that costs the company money too so i’m not sure what the truth is there.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonniey Posted July 11, 2019 Share Posted July 11, 2019 7 hours ago, Spaceman Spiff said: The first quote says "despairing of ever finding new work in France's immobile labor market." Did they really think that they couldn't find a job outside of what they were doing? Did the bosses blackball them from working for other companies? That was one (is? -been a while since I read about it) of the consequences of the no firing law. Companies were afraid to hire because once they did they couldn't get rid of those they hired. It really was (is?) an enormously damaging law, the young find it hard to get work, the old are afraid to leave and businesses can't operate effectively. Guess they should also put the lawmakers that passed it on trial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kosher Ham Posted July 11, 2019 Share Posted July 11, 2019 They could have quit... Right? I don't see how they could be on the hook for others decisions to end their own lives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Springfield Posted July 11, 2019 Share Posted July 11, 2019 Did their bosses pull the trigger? Or tie the knot? Or slice the knife? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kfrankie Posted July 11, 2019 Share Posted July 11, 2019 On 7/10/2019 at 7:32 PM, Spaceman Spiff said: Is harassment not part of a labor law? Not trying to be a smartass, genuinely curious. Can't imagine it wouldn't be. A better question might be "why is workplace harassment a criminal offense and not a civil wrong compensable through a court ordered monetary award?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.