
French executives convicted in the suicides of 35 of their workers - andrewl
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/12/20/three-french-executives-were-convicted-suicides-their-workers/
======
errantspark
Anyone else feel like they're on crazy pills? How is engineering a culture so
toxic it causes dozens of people to kill themselves specifically to circumvent
worker protections worth only what amounts to the punishment of a speeding
ticket or other minor transgression for a poor person (proportionally)?

Like I get it, I should be glad an executive was held to account for anything.
But this is a tiny step and we got a looong way to go before we get to
liberté, égalité, fraternité.

It seems that with great power comes great wealth and an almost complete lack
of accountability.

I would like to live in a world where the link between power and
responsibility was much more aggressively enforced. I've worked in places
where corners were cut constantly, endangering workers in pursuit of the
bottom line, I'm sure it's more or less the norm. The executives shouldn't be
able to sleep at night for fear of the complete destruction of their lives for
their transgressions. It should be life in prison with no possibility of
parole, not a fine.

Even something like buying an SUV should map to greater punishments. It's well
known that you're much more likely to kill a pedestrian with a car that has a
high grille. The law should enforce a greater level of responsibility on the
people who chose to inflict greater risk on the lives of others.

~~~
shaki-dora
All employees are free to leave... That does not excuse misconduct by managers
or violations of law. But the specific outcome here, I. s. suicide, is
fiendishly difficult link to any one cause.

The usual standard for negligence is something like “resonantly foreseeable”,
but even that isn’t particular useful in this case: with enough employees, you
could probably always avoid at least one suicidal by, say, doubling wages. So
where’s the limit?

~~~
speedplane
> All employees are free to leave...

That's a pretty poor excuse for misbehavior. Similar to "if you don't like
this country, you should leave".

~~~
boring_twenties
> That does not excuse misconduct by managers or violations of law.

Literally right after the bit you quoted.

------
astatine
It's a sad story that I remember from years ago. I wonder how much the rigid
rules that France has on employee firing contribute to this.

I am aware of an employer's view in a different case where (in a small
company) an employee was asked to leave for poor performance. The process
dragged for so long that the employee was paid full salary for close to 15
months without ever coming to office during this period. The company closed
shop.

~~~
WalterBright
Generally speaking, the harder it is to fire someone, the more reluctant a
company will be to hire someone.

~~~
Iv
I think most French would be happy to switch to a system where it is easy to
fire, as long as the social net was good. Thing is, these two things
(strengthening the safety net and making the labor laws more flexible) are
defended by different parties. The few that have pretended to do this
transition ended up just removing labor law protections.

~~~
brmgb
The great paradox of France is that people keep believing it's hard to fire
there while it's not. Every government for the past thirty years have made
firing easier.

You have an up to eight months window of at-will before the protections kick
in and they are mostly severance compensation which rises with the duration of
your employment. You have to have a cause but these are plentyful.

If you can agree with your employee it's time to part, you don't even need to
fire them. There is a legal way to commonly agree to break the contract which
closes judicial recourse from the employee.

When companies in France complain they can't fire, what they actually mean is
that they can't do it for free. Personally it doesn't make me too sad.

~~~
BrandoElFollito
Past the probation period even if you want to pay firing is not easy. Sure you
can use contractual statements (such as that the work can be anywhere in
France) but short of harassment there is no easy way out.

If you fire someone out means that you are shutting down the position. The
court will not be happy if it was a fake shutdown.

A middle ground such as the specific laws for first employment (which did not
pass) child be a middle ground.

~~~
Iv
I keep moving one side or the other on this issue.

I think there is a philosophical difference in the way companies and employees
are seen in France vs US. I often feel (from discussions here, but American
friends told me the views are more varied in a representative sample of the US
population) that in the US companies are seen as an extension of their owners'
will. Do what you want on a whim. Want to close a profitable company to just
cash in everything and buy a yacht? You own it, you can do it.

In France companies owners that do have employees are more considered like
caretakers of a piece of the national production and are expected to be
responsible of the piece of economy they grabbed (or, arguable, were allowed
to grab).

So yes, if you think you can be a worthy contributor to the economy, you are
allowed to grab a piece of it and keep a nice part to yourself, but in
exchange there are rules for you to be responsible about it, like not creating
jobs that may be unsustainable and depriving sustainable companies from labor.

In France you can fire employees for reasons, but you need reasons better than
a whim. If you have a good reason (the employee broke important rules, or the
law, refuses to do their work), it is free. If it is for performances or
economic reasons, well you made a hiring mistake and it is going to cost you,
but a reasonable amount.

I am not sure it is bad. The French economy performs pretty well when you go
past the headlines and look at the numbers. I don't think that model is the
drag we make it look like.

~~~
BrandoElFollito
I think you are very correct in your analysis.

There is also some kind of close relationship between job and personal life
(at least in the tech companies I worked in).

For instance we will be careful when planning to take into account school
holidays.

Or the company will make arrangements on day one at school so that parents can
be late (the ones who had to bring their children to school).

Everybody understand that teachers are a civilization on their own and that a
meeting with a parent at 16:30 is normal. So companies adapt.

There are many more similar situations.

------
Geimfari
30 reported suicides in 2008–2009 in a company employing 100,000 people. This
is a suicide rate equivalent to France's average national suicide rate.

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
europe-13204168](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-13204168)

~~~
DanBC
You may want to read about the concept of "suicide clusters" which seem to the
relevant to the deaths at Orange.

[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/839621/PHE_Suicide_Cluster_Guide.pdf)

------
elamje
"The company, France Télécom — which used to be state-owned and is now known
as Orange, one of France’s largest corporations — was fined $83,000, the
maximum penalty."

Nice.

~~~
1996
It's like, what, 6 month of pay.

Considering 2 people died, and this slap on the wrist is 6 month of wages,
divide by two and that's 3 month pay for every dead worker.

Will the executive have to pay out of their pocket? If so, each executive can
have up to 4 dead workers per year before having to worry -- not even taking
bonuses in account!

Europe never ceases to amaze me.

~~~
paggle
Europe? Where is corporate crime punished effectively? With decades long
prison sentences for the responsible executives?

~~~
muro
Surprisingly enough, South Korea last week jailed a high ranking Samsung
executive for anti union actions.

------
bagels
I wish the article gave examples of what this harassment constituted of. It is
hard to fathom what specifically they must have been doing.

~~~
Yoric
I don't know about this specific case, but I can give you examples in other
companies. Some of them were things I lived through "thanks" to a former boss
of mine who's still lurking on HN so hello, former boss.

1\. Move someone's desk to (sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively) a
closet: a place where they don't see anyone.

2\. Set someone to watch them. Make sure that they can't speak to anyone
during the day. Make sure that they are always at their desk. If they're not,
for any reason, make sure to blame them.

3\. Repeat them three times per day that they are doing a piss-poor job.

4\. But also make sure that they have nothing to do. Make-believe job at best,
but it must be clear to them that it's make-believe job. Once they have
produced their deliverables, ignore these entirely.

5\. Set them up to fail. Give them impossible deadlines. Change the goalposts.
Give them a title and responsibilities that looks like they have entire teams
working for them but never fill the teams.

6\. Force you to write daily reports of activities when everybody else is on
weekly/monthly/quarterly/... basis.

7\. But also repeat to them that they're not working sufficiently. Make it
clear to them that it's their fault.

etc.

~~~
privateSFacct
Can I ask briefly what kept you spending such a significant portion of your
day working for such an employer? Is this is in the US or somewhere else where
maybe there is a forced work period? In the US at least your employer
generally cannot force you to keep working for them but I know other places in
the mideast etc they can.

~~~
Yoric
This was in France.

Well, there were several factors.

1\. It took me time to realize that this was going on.

2\. My boss basically wanted to get rid of me because I had done my job too
well and everybody knew it. I had taken over some of his previous
responsibilities and where he had led the company's flagship project pretty
close to the grave, I led the team that turned his failure into success.
Problem is, he wanted his name to be the one on the top of the poster. By
then, getting me to leave was paramount to asking me to abandon my baby. So
yeah, it took me some time to come to terms with this.

3\. Generally speaking, in France, there's a notion of "job loyalty" which is
very different from anything I've seen in UK/US/Canada. I've elaborated more
on the topic over there
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21856307](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21856307)

4\. Benefits are very different if you quit or if you're laid off/fired. If
you quit, there were no benefits at all at the time (laws have changed since
then, I believe). My boss was clearly trying to fire me without benefits. I
did not enjoy this prospect.

5\. Also, finding a new job takes more time in France than, say, in the US.
It's both an economical thing and a cultural thing – interview periods are
longer, for instance.

 __edit __Rephrased point 2.

~~~
denni9th
If I was aware of someone wanting to fire me without benefits by forcing me to
quit, I'd probably try force them to fire me with those benefits. I'd sit at
my desk playing games or watching series or some other non-work activity,
ignoring any requests from my manager. Eventually they'll have to fire me, or
they keep paying me to do nothing.

~~~
Yoric
Well, if you do this in France, you can get fired for "Faute Grave" ("It's
your fault and it's bad"), in which case you get very reduced benefits or even
in some cases "Faute Lourde" ("It's your fault and we're probably going to sue
you for it"), in which case you get no benefits at all.

In 99% of circumstances, firing people is really not difficult in France
(there are a few exceptions such as pregnant women, people who are on a long-
term handicap leave or people who have been elected by workers as their
spokespersons). Laying them off for economic reasons is a bit more
complicated.

~~~
DoctorOetker
> ...or people who have been elected by workers as their spokespersons

would this have been possible in the timeframe you experienced? since he felt
the need to isolate you, indicates the boss knew the team respected your
leadership, which generally indicates the team would have been willing to vote
you as representative / spokesperson.

it might not have become the most pleasant job, but sometimes caesar must
accept the crown unwillingly...

~~~
Yoric
I suppose it might have been a strategy but job protection was not my goal.

------
boyadjian
That situation is the consequence of too protective laws for working in
France. In France, it is very difficult to fire someone, so it leads to
problems when you want to decrease the number of staff.

~~~
Yoric
Actually, in most cases, it's not that difficult. You need to expect a fairly
large severance paycheck, though.

~~~
AdrianB1
That can close a company that is already in a bad situation, is it?

~~~
Yoric
You need to see it coming and plan accordingly further ahead, yes.

~~~
AdrianB1
That is daydreaming.

~~~
Yoric
What, planning ahead? If a company cannot plan ahead, I expect that it's
doomed no matter what.

------
gallexme
Where can I read this article with my phone without paying?

Also is there a way to offer to write an automatic link converter(for free)
for hacker news?

------
anm89
Is it legally accurate that they are being convicted for the suicides of the
workers implying they were the cause or are they being convicted of some other
violation which may have lead to worker suicides.

The first sounds insane. The second sounds reasonable.

Can't read the article because of the paywall.

~~~
ramchip
The second (institutional harassment).

------
tdsamardzhiev
“held to account”

“$83,000”

Choose one. That’s not punishment, that’s a pat on the back.

------
rolltiide
Is France crazy or are we the bad guys?

------
michaelborromeo
When you have an immovable object (can’t fire an employee due to law) up
against an unstoppable force (economic pressure to cut jobs) you get actions
that try to bend either of the above constraints.

In the end something had to break — either the company or the people or both.

No one forced these people to either work at the company or to commit suicide.

Yes their pensions were linked to their jobs but is quitting and losing your
retirement better than death?

Or maybe they wanted to be martyrs and knew this would lead to a punishment
for the executives.

~~~
Yoric
One thing you probably underestimate is that the relationship between employer
and employee is very different in France wrt, say, UK/US/Canada.

France has something called "job loyalty." After the ~6 months trial period, a
_good_ employee will typically _never_ quit their job, because this would be
breaking a bond that is nearly as strong as that of marriage. The employer is,
of course, expected to do treat employees as best as possible. If economic
pressure forces the employer to lay off people, this is a reality of life, and
France has laws that forces the employer to make it happen in a humane manner
(i.e. fairly large severance check, among other things).

Here, managers decided to cut out on their side of the deal by employing
"placardisation", i.e. bullying people out of their job, i.e. bringing these
people to nervous breakdown. But culturally, these people couldn't quit. They
could only hope that their managers would be replaced by better managers.

So when you're saying that "No one forced these people to either work at the
company or to commit suicide" – well, yes, they were forced because that's how
everybody is raised in France.

~~~
adev_
> So when you're saying that "No one forced these people to either work at the
> company or to commit suicide" – well, yes, they were forced because that's
> how everybody is raised in France.

That is very true.

It was even more true in national companies like France Telecom where it was a
personal achievement for many to be there.

Often positions in these companies where even family thing, where your family
except you to be part of when you are old enough.

------
robsinatra
Executives at a French company couldn't treat people as resources and fire at
will because France has employee protection laws (sounds good but only in
theory). So, the executives made employees miserable, intending to push them
to quit. Instead, employees killed themselves. You want to fire people but you
can't, so what do you do? Make them not want to be there anymore.

There is a case to be made that these employees would have killed themselves
if they were fired. This is an important distinction because it's the loss of
employment, not harassment, that lead to suicide.

It's crazy to think that there are people here who will read this and think
that with this given, firing should be illegal and executives charged for
manslaughter. You are thinking dangerously and need to study history. Or, you
are French and there is no difference.

~~~
TheNorthman
It's crazy to to think that people are still suggesting people to "study
history", as though history is a homogeneous mass that can even be studied as
a whole.

It's crazy to think that history is uniformly in favor of the executive class.
That somehow the brutality of the elites can be justified by their
understanding of history. That they can't be deferred to some broader concept
of morality because they have history on their side. This argument is the same
as the one made by Francis Fukuyama in his book _The End of History and the
Last Man_ and it is fundamentally flawed in the same way.

Never have violence, inequality, exclusion, famine, and thus economic
oppression affected as many human beings in the history of the earth and of
humanity. Instead of singing the advent of the ideal of liberal democracy and
of the capitalist market in the euphoria of the end of history. Let us never
neglect this obvious, macroscopic fact, made up of innumerable, singular sites
of suffering: no degree of progress allows one to ignore that never before, in
absolute figures, have so many men, women and children been subjugated,
starved or exterminated on the earth.

~~~
tome
> Never have violence, inequality, exclusion, famine, and thus economic
> oppression affected as many human beings in the history of the earth

And have they ever affected a smaller _proportion_ of human beings in recorded
history?

~~~
claudiawerner
The proportion dosen't seem as morally relevant (though it is a factor) as the
sheer number (you can figure it as a trolley problem; the train running over
10k out of 100k is arguably worse than running over 5 out of 10) - and
arguably, inequality, exploitation and domination have more to do with
relative wealth than absolute wealth. Although the lives of a great many have
undeniably improved, that has nothing to do with what social scientists and
philosophers of economics mean by inequality, exploitation and domination -
which usually focuses on the share of productive capacity by members of
society. All the "big names" like Sen and Roemer have those issues on the
radar. You can figure the problems of the system in terms of domination[0],
exploiters dominating[1], extraction of surplus-value[2], or unequal exchange
of labour[3][4].

[0]
[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08854300.2016.12...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08854300.2016.1215810?journalCode=csad20)

[1]
[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00346764.2019.1...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00346764.2019.1618483)

[2] [http://matsuo-tadasu.ptu.jp/RecentControversyOnFMT.pdf](http://matsuo-
tadasu.ptu.jp/RecentControversyOnFMT.pdf)

[3]
[https://ideas.repec.org/p/kch/wpaper/sdes-2018-10.html](https://ideas.repec.org/p/kch/wpaper/sdes-2018-10.html)

[4]
[https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...](https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1106&context=econ_workingpaper)

~~~
dnautics
If it's the sheer number you care about, not the proportion, then the problem
is clear: Human reproduction. Eliminate that, and the sheer number of
incidents of oppression and suffering will go down.

~~~
mc3
Eliminate that, and there will be zero people!

