The blindness behind telecom suicides

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/12/france-telecom-suicides ^

[Orange1998]

Now, it can't deny there is a problem. France Telecom, the once proud and efficient French public company, is in trouble, big trouble. Twenty-two of the company's employees have killed themselves in the last 20 months and all have left letters or testimonies incriminating their work conditions. This week, another employee tried but failed to take his own life. Some have even committed the desperate act in their own office. For months, France Telecom denied these "accidents" had anything to do with the company's work ethics. Now, the problem is staring it in the face. For the first time this week, it has agreed to meet union representatives and has agreed to hold seminars on "stress in the workplace". As reported by Libération yesterday, one employee who came this week to demonstrate with her colleagues in front of France Telecom's head office in Paris, said: "In my department, we're 50 and half of us take anti-depressant medication." At the heart of the workforce's demands is a moratorium on forced work reassignment and "forced mobility". Since the company was floated on the stock exchange in 1997 and then recapitalised by the state for €9bn in 2004, the company has been restructuring on a massive scale and has reassigned many jobs, leading to employees having to change jobs overnight or suddenly move to a new workplace, hundreds of kilometres away. Very difficult when you are in your late 40s and have been doing the same job within the company for 20 or 30 years. According to the unions, some employees have seen their job reassigned 20 times since 2004. Since 1997, the company has shed 60,000 jobs and reassigned 70,000 in a company that today boasts a workforce of 100,000 employees.

[indcons]

What a bunch of cry babies! In a capitalist market, changing a job or a location are understood to be quite normal.

Socialist mor@ns.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

If only this fad would catch on among American MSM creatures! Some of the more egregious could even do it on screen, i.e. Olberman(Spelling?)hanging himself and while he is dancing at the end of the rope the station cuts to a Sham WOW commercial!

[American Silver Eagle]

I haven’t read the story fully but I suspect since it is almost impossible to fire an employee in France, this company has decided to try to make their employees quit by moving them around and changing their job repeatedly. The solution would be to just not care about doing a half assed job which you can’t be fired from anyway.

[Stosh]

Evidence for a “cheese-eating surrender monkey” gene?

[ModelBreaker]

FTE is up almost 22% in the last couple of months. Pays a nice dividend.

[ntmxx]

Ahww, the poor “cheese-eating surrender monkey” Euro-trash have to woorrk. Funny, how these POS just happen to always be whining about something especially when no one is paying their freight.

[mort56]

When they have to actually work for a living, they need to be sedated and some choose suicide? This is the current European work ethic?

Socialism at work. What a bunch of wussies.

[Lorianne]

I hate to be heartless, buy why would anyone kill themselves over a job? I’ve worked in some bad environments and it just gave me more motivation to do really well in my NEXT job and leave those nasty people behind in the dust.

[JohnLongIsland]

DeathCare™ or Phone Service...you can’t have both.

[DPMD]

I’m guessing they all had to work more than 16 hours a week, with only six months vacation time per year.

[DontTreadOnMe2009]

So, you can fire 60,000 people and the telephones still work?

What more needs to be said.

Seems like they are finally working like all other firms - wow - that sure can be stressful.

Are 20 suicides out of a 100,000 population statistically significant???

To unions they are.

Poor Frenchies. Boo hoo cry be a river as G Beck said.

[Boiler Plate]

Sounds like Mr Welch of GE fame has found a new job.

“Neutron Jaques”

[tophat9000]

France Telecom, I use to deal with these idiot on international ckts

They had a 1 800 lines in the US for American customers (the spoke english on these lines)...

I called one day to open a ticket and the guy on the other end asks me, in english, "do you speak French?"... I tell him no.

So he tells me... "Then I can not help you, we are on a speak French only strike today!"

[tophat9000]

France Telecom, I use to deal with these idiot on international ckts

They had a 1 800 lines in the US for American customers (the spoke English on these lines)...

I called one day to open a ticket and the guy on the other end asks me, in English, "do you speak French?"... I tell him no.

So he tells me... "Then I can not help you, we are on a speak French only strike today!"

But they did have really great hold music... you work telcom you get to appreciate the difference between good and bad hold music ;>

[knews_hound]

And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were married, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire...



Cheers,

knewshound

knewshounds blog