Workplace Bullying and Management Practices: What Lessons Can Be Learned from the France Telecom Case?

There will be a before and after France Telecom case. During the privatisation of the company and the need to make it more efficient very quickly, the management declined a restructuring policy between 2006 and 2010 to obtain 22,000 departures and 10,000 mobilities out of a workforce of 120,000 employees. Setting such targets required management to initiate a broad and intractable restructuring plan that resulted in an unprecedented wave of suicides. The pressure was felt on every level, the restructuring objectives had to be met at all costs and the targeted employees should go “through the door or the window” according to the words of the CEO! The years 2008 and 2009 count alone no less than 35 suicides pushing the Labour Minister to adopt an emergency plan for the prevention of psychosocial risks at work on October 9, 2009.From May 6 to July 11, 2011, two months of litigation punctuated 46 hearings and heard 120 plaintiffs. The prosecutor ordered a fine of € 15,000 against the former executives and a fine of € 75,000 against the company. These penalties seem very weak, but constitute the maximum enacted in the Criminal Code before 2012. These penalties seem even weaker in light of the chilling testimonies expressed during the proceeding, the extreme suffering that led the victims to commit suicide and the families who suffered this trauma. Faced with a restructuring plan that has generated and institutionalised real psychological violence to the point of pushing some people to commit suicide, was it relevant to retain the criminal incrimination of workplace bullying? Indeed, French law refers to an individual relationship when it comes to addressing the issue of workplace bullying.The criminal Court created an “institutionalised bullying” offence in a context of violence resulting from a general management policy and pratices. This way adopted by the judges is interesting rather than attempting to demonstrate a not very clear “collective bullying” and not recognised by the French Supreme Court. In these circumstances, workplace bullying, understood as a collective bullying, seems more fragile to cope with because more difficult to recognize in French law.The Court did not adopt a prosecution on the charge of endangering others as suggested by the Union SUD and Sylvie Catala, the labour inspector in charge of investigating suicides at France Telecom and. If the penalties of 15,000 euros fine and 1-year imprisonment remain very low, the impact of having recognized that a company by its mode of management has endangered the lives of its employees would have an impact all the more resounding, especially when considering the impact on health at work of certain management methods from their conception. The debate would inevitably question ethical considerations in the decision-making process at the top of the company