AN INVESTIGATING magistrate has begun an inquiry into more than 30 suicides at France Telecom to find out whether staff may have suffered workplace harassment.
The inquiry by an independent judge, confirmed yesterday by the Paris prosecutor’s office, is the first stage in a process that could lead to the first criminal trial against a company on the grounds of its human resources policies.
Up to 35 France Telecom employees died by suicide in 2008 and 2009, drawing attention on the crisis of morale among its 100,000 workforce. However, lawyers for the company said it disputed that its general approach to human resources was behind the spate of suicides or that it pushed staff to leave because it was not possible to fire them.
As France Telecom was a government agency before its privatisation in the mid-1990s, about two-thirds of its staff have civil servant status and cannot be sacked.
“One cannot speak of a harassment policy. You have to put each suicide in its context,” Claudia Chemarin, a lawyer for the company, said yesterday.
France Telecom has said 32 employees took their own lives in 2008 and 2009. Unions have given a figure of 35. The suicides are continuing, with about 10 cases since the start of the year, according to both sides.
Last month, the telecoms firm unveiled measures to improve staff morale following the highly publicised suicides, which raised concerns among politicians and led to the accelerated departure of former chief executive Didier Lombard.
The company, which is still 27 per cent-owned by the French state, has been struggling in recent years and has instituted staff cuts and longer working hours.
While management has acknowledged the low morale, it argues that, given the staff numbers and age profile of employees, the suicide rate was not exceptional.
The inquiry announced yesterday follows a complaint by a staff union and is based on a highly critical report by the official French workplace inspector, which concluded that France Telecom employees were subjected to “harassment” as the company sought to reach its target of 22,000 staff cuts.
France’s highest court ruled in November that harassment could result from management policy and not just from problems in the relationships between staff and their managers.
