Ex-France Telecom CEO probed over staff suicide spate
Supremo quizzed in court after union cried foul
Regcast training : Hyper-V 3.0, VM high availability and disaster recovery
Former France Telecom chief executive Didier Lombard is under investigation following a spate of staff suicides at his firm in 2008 and 2009.
Lombard was in charge of the company when more than 30 employees took their lives and others attempted to kill themselves amid mass redundancies at the telco.
A court in Paris, which is conducting the probe, will decide whether or not to bring charges of harassment against the firm's management or even the company itself.
The case was opened after trade union SUD-PTT filed a formal complaint. The union said yesterday that it welcomed the court's decision to investigate Lombard.
"A trial must take place and we hope it will unveil the responsibilities and dismantle the mechanisms that led to this crisis of suicides at France Telecom," SUD-PTT said in a canned statement.
Lombard, who stepped down as CEO early in 2010 because of the crisis, was questioned in the court on Wednesday. On the same day, he defended himself in an article in French newspaper Le Monde.
"I strongly doubt that these plans, which were essential to the survival of the company, may have been the cause of the human tragedies cited in support of complaints," he wrote.
"Giving up these plans would certainly have had painful consequences for the group and for the employment of its employees," he added.
Lombard was referring to the massive upheaval at the firm that saw headcount reduced by 22,000 while 10,000 more were moved into new positions. The restructure came 10 years after the privatisation of the company.
Unions claimed that the forced moves and impossible performance targets imposed on people who used to be civil servants – many of whom had "protected employment" status, presumably making it difficult to fire them – were partly to blame for the suicides. But France Telecom said at the time that the proportion of suicides in its workforce was the same as the overall rate in France.
Lombard was released on bail of €100,000 ($125,000, £80,307), Reuters reported. If he is charged and found guilty of harassment, he could face up to one year in prison as well as a €15,000 ($18,766, £12,046) fine. ®
COMMENTS
before deciding its ok if the level of suicides match that of the country as a whole...
check to see if the rate of suicides prior to these actions matched it as well.. they may or may not.
Suicide is not something that occours uniformily across a population.. there will be risk groups that stand out.. especially young males.. there are also other factors in play beside sex and age.
if the suicide rate at the company was way below average before the redundancies and then jumped up to 'average' level during, then there was still an issue to at least look into.
lies, damn lies and then statistics.
Re: So this is the man responsible...
You clearly have not worked in a T company where T is part of a 2-3 letter abbreviation.
The only thing that can compare to a lot (not all) of these is the Soviet Union during Brezhnev's time especially if you happen to be non-unionized non-field staff.
I suggest you work in one for a few years as non-unionized white collar non-management staff to experience first hand. Nuff said. Me coat.
Anonymous on purpose (I used to work for one so I know first hand what do you get on the receiving side).
harassment
Isn't harassment the basis of our capitalist system?
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Top 10 SIEM implementer’s checklist
Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner
Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider
