French Prosecutors Probe Whether Suicides Were Due to Company's 'Moral Harassment'
An investigative magistrate has been appointed in Paris to determine whether France Télécom should be charged with “moral harassment” in the suicides of 35 of its employees.
The investigation comes after inspectors from the French Labor Ministry issued a report finding that a restructuring with the goal of cutting 22,000 jobs at the company was “tantamount to harassment,” the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) reports.
Jean-Paul Teissonniere, a lawyer for the French union that filed a complaint over the suicides, criticized the company in an interview with the Associated Press. “At one time, there was an intention to create a sense of frustration so employees would leave,” he said. “The problem was that it worked too well.”
Last month the company revealed its responses to the suicides. They include hiring thousands of new employees to help relieve work pressures, AP says, and tying bonuses to worker morale, the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) reported in an earlier story.
