lunedì 5 ottobre 2009

France Télécom: Executive Quits After Suicides

Published: October 5, 2009

PARIS (AP) — The telecommunications giant France Télécom said on Monday that the company’s second-in-command had quit, after weeks of mounting criticism over the company’s handling of a spate of suicides by employees.

The executive, Louis-Pierre Wenes, will be succeeded as deputy chief executive in charge of French operations by Stéphane Richard, a former chief of staff for France’s finance minister, who joined the company in July as head of international operations, France Télécom said in a statement.

Unions say the company’s restructuring could be to blame for some of the 24 suicides by company employees in the last 18 months. The company laid off some 22,000 people from 2006 through 2008.

A spokesman for the CGC-UNSA union, Sébastien Crozier, welcomed Mr. Wenes’s departure.

“We think that now conditions have been met for a change of strategy,” Mr. Crozier said. The company was to hold a meeting Monday between unions and management to discuss a threatened strike this week.

The latest suicide came last week, when a 51-year-old man jumped off a bridge onto a highway in the Haute-Savoie region. In a note found in his car, the father of two blamed his act on the “atmosphere” at his workplace.

France Télécom, which has 100,000 employees, has announced several measures in response to the suicides, including suspending around 500 employee transfers that are part of a reorganization.

Nessun commento:

Posta un commento

Post in evidenza

The Great Taking - The Movie

David Webb exposes the system Central Bankers have in place to take everything from everyone Webb takes us on a 50-year journey of how the C...