Makes my point. "French Telecom Company Convicted Of 'Moral Harassment". And you won't hear much argument against that over here. Seems self-evident its undesirable practice. — Baden

Cool.

I only glanced at an article about this so i might be wrong, but didn't orange execs intentionally try to make people's lives and working conditions miserable with the specific intention of having them quit?

They were trying to speed up employee departures (probably because firing or laying off costs more money).

So should companies be allowed to harass their employees into quitting in order to save on severance fees?

So should companies be allowed to harass their employees into quitting in order to save on severance fees? — VagabondSpectre

The primary targets were probably older retired-in-place types. Young workers cost less and they work harder.

A company that does that has a poor relationship with the community.

The primary targets were probably older retired-in-place types. Young workers cost less and they work harder.

A company that does that has a poor relationship with the community. — frank

Are you suggesting that the market should sort this out?

What if some disgruntled employees harassed the execs to the point that one of them commits suicide?

I'm pretty sure this is just a case of a corporation trying to steal money from people who have no way to fight back. If they want retired-in-place old folks out the door, then they need to pay the severance fees (or to take the stock hit from issuing layoffs, or whatever the fiscal reason for this was).

What the execs did was a criminal betrayal, and it should be corrected by both market forces AND punitive measures (although it looks like they got relative wrist slaps).

What the execs did was a criminal betrayal, — VagabondSpectre

Betrayal of what exactly?

Betrayal of what exactly? — frank

It's a betrayal of the employer-employee relationship/contract.

When someone agrees to work for a company, there is an unspoken assumption that the employer won't begin harassing the new employee to death the moment it becomes financially beneficial to do so.

P.S: in terms of laws, there are all kinds of harassment statutes, a number of which specifically apply to working conditions and treatment of employees. That's what makes it criminal.

I'd call that a basic duty of care. Luckily, it usually tends to gel well with the profit motive as workplace suicides tend to be bad for business.

This part of the the article says it all:

The roots of the case date back about two decades, to a period when the company, then known by the name France Télécom, was still part of the government's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. Once a state-run monopoly, the company sold off most of its shares and underwent a process of privatization in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

That process left its employees in an uncomfortable situation: still enjoying the strong employment protections of civil servants, but working for a management structure newly constrained by the marketplace and looking to shed costs to compete.

Civil servants cannot be fired the same way as ordinary employees. That's the problem.

Companies and corporations are just these bullshit contracts how we make otherwise normal transactions of services to be these awful employer/employee relations.

Civil servants cannot be fired the same way as ordinary employees. That's the problem. — ssu

I knew it! Socialism was the problem! :strong:

When someone agrees to work for a company, there is an unspoken assumption that the employer won't begin harassing the new employee to death the moment it becomes financially beneficial to do so. — VagabondSpectre

I think you just made that up.

P.S: in terms of laws, there are all kinds of harassment statutes, a number of which specifically apply to working conditions and treatment of employees. That's what makes it criminal. — VagabondSpectre

Could you give an example?

I'd call that a basic duty of care. Luckily, it usually tends to gel well with the profit motive as workplace suicides tend to be bad for business. — Baden

"Duty of care" certainly applies in the employer-employee relationship. However, in tort law, duty of care pertains to "negligence" suits, but the actions of the execs were intentional. Breach of duty of care is when someone fails to do the reasonable minimum due to negligence, but an intentional tort (the intentional and unjustified causing of harm to another) is something else entirely (harsher punishments in many cases, up to and including punitive damages). Intentional torts require no breach of duty of care because we all have the implicit duty not to intentionally take actions that are reasonably likely to cause harm to others (they're harder to prove though,because we demonstrate intent instead of duty of care and a breach thereof (negligence).

That said, duty of care has probably been breached...

@frank with regard to tort law, see the above (they're guilty of intentional torts, and I expect the families/estates of the victims to sue for damages). If I was litigating for a plaintiff in a civil suit against the execs (not a lawyer, so that would be funny...), I would show the intentional tort of inflicting emotional/mental distress (and the harm caused being suicides), and seek extraordinary punitive damages.

With regard to criminal law, they were already sentenced right? "Moral harassment?" (these kinds of laws vary from state to state and nation to nation). Depending on what the execs actually did (when and how) the company could be liable for an unsafe work environment (OSHA laws), or the individuals could be found guilty of criminal harassment of some kind.

I think you just made that up. — frank

They're called occupational safety and health administration laws (OSHA standards)

https://employment.findlaw.com/workplace-safety/workplace-safety-osha-and-osh-act-overview.html

You are aware that there are laws regulating what employers can and cannot do to their employees right?

:point: :up:

I know what OSHA is. A boss can turn a workplace into hell without any overt bullying. Where that exists, we don't need to refer to "moral harassment." If it's assault, call it assault.

I think we both need to know what these French execs actually did.

I did read that they essentially terrorized the employees by moving them around into new roles they were unsuited for, and setting unrealistic productivity objectives. In some situations, there would be no plausible case against the employer because they can claim it is a part of their management strategy, but apparently there is evidence showing that they took those actions specifically to distress their employees into quitting.

The idea of a social contract is pretty useful here (I think some conceptions of tort law frame it as a formalized social contract). Because we're inexorably forced into living and working together, we have to erect limitations against harmful and deceptive practices that spread harm, (lest we all burn in a fireball of our own greed, envy, and retribution). Corporations and business entities should not be exempt from those necessary limitations (ethically speaking), lest we degenerate into being wholly owned by them with the gold, and without scruples.

The idea of a social contract is pretty useful here — VagabondSpectre

I'm thinking something more primitive: the ideal is that we support each other (and seek to bring out the best).

Where that doesn't happen, the stress can be the sand in the oyster or it can kill the oyster. It's hard to say how we should hold the sand responsible either way.

But when the sand-man intentionally tries to over-sand and damage some oysters into retreat to save on dismissal costs or other obstacles, then we have a harmful sand-man who is breaching the ideal that we should seek to support and bring out the best in each-other.

These execs seem to have done the exact opposite. They sought to stress and debilitate their employees in order to bring out the worst in them.

It's that malice of intent, and the harm that resulted, that generates the strongest ethical and legal issue.

You could get efficiency gains by [...] extending the working week to 60 hours — Baden

Actually from what I've read, the longer the shift the lower the efficiency (work per time).

I would expect that in many cases, overall efficiency of production coincides with worker well-being, because healthy, happy people do better work, and poorer people spend more of their income so paying more to the poor and working classes instead of the upper classes means more demand and higher profits for businesses, and so on. The people on top treating the people on bottom poorly is irrational behavior that fails to look at what a detriment it makes in the big picture, because being rich and powerful doesn't necessarily mean you're a smart, systemic, forward-thinker.

It's that malice of intent, and the harm that resulted, that generates the strongest ethical and legal issue. — VagabondSpectre

I agree that knowing someone is deliberately trying to make you feel like crap adds a little more oomph to the punch. There's shock value.

But that's not too hard to hide from onlookers. I wonder how the French court went about weighing the evidence.

But that's not too hard to hide from onlookers. I wonder how the French court went about weighing the evidence. — frank

I remember reading a quote that I believe was used as evidence to show intent. it went something like "Whether by the window or the door, I'll get them out by any means necessary". Mens Rea (guilty mind) is notoriously difficult to prove in many situations, but not when we have a confession establishing it. Given the severity of the harm that resulted, and the clear evidence of intent, it would actually be a pretty strong case in a civil suit. The defense would likely try to argue that their clients could not have reasonably known that their actions would result in suicides, but that defense would be assailable in many ways (namely the fact that over 30 employees killed themselves as a result (showing that severe distress is a likely ramification of their actions, and therefore reasonably foreseeable), and that even though the execs did not intend suicides, they did intend the psychological harm that precipitated them, which is the basis of the tort in question (emotional/mental distress, also called tort of outrage I believe)), and subsequently leaves them liable for the ensuing damages, including the deaths (damages being distinct from criminal guilt that is established in criminal judicial proceedings).

and subsequently leaves them liable for the ensuing damages — VagabondSpectre

If you're the victims' lawyer for the civil suit, you're motivated to get as much as you can from the executives.

It all comes back to the bottom line.

Corporations only care about the bottom line, which is why extracting justice from them in the form of damages (cash), is an effective deterrent against such torts.

But yes, I would do the best job I could for my clients and seek the maximum; such is how the adversarial legal systems work, and their lawyers would be seeking to pay nothing, or even to counter-sue for legal fees.

This is a feature of the legal system though, not a bug.

It all goes back to this foolish enlightenment idea that giving all sides a fair chance to make their strongest case (in what is essentially a debate) is the best way to allow the truth to surface.

So the fact that you make your living off of securing damages has no bearing?

Actually in your case that's probably true.

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that it's corrupt for lawyers to seek the maximums?

In much the same way, criminal prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers seek the maximums and minimums for their clients (the people via the state and the defendant). Even if a defense lawyer knows that their client is guilty and believes that they should be given a harsh sentence, that must not stop them from trying to get their client off with the lowest possible conviction or sentence. The prosecutor is going to try and get the severest conviction, and so to balance that out the defense must seek the minimum. Rather than a craps shoot of people getting the book thrown at them vs getting off scott free, what tends to happen is the prosecution argues why the defendant is guilty and deserves incarceration or punishment, and the defense argues why the defendant is either not guilty or more usually, why they should be given a low sentence due to "mitigating factors" after admitting guilt. Once guilt has been shown, the sentence is tempered by the judge according to those mitigating factors.

I would expect that in many cases, overall efficiency of production coincides with worker well-being, because healthy, happy people do better work, and poorer people spend more of their income so paying more to the poor and working classes instead of the upper classes means more demand and higher profits for businesses, and so on. The people on top treating the people on bottom poorly is irrational behavior that fails to look at what a detriment it makes in the big picture, because being rich and powerful doesn't necessarily mean you're a smart, systemic, forward-thinker. — Pfhorrest

Amazon seems to be doing rather well with mistreatment.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/02/revealed-amazon-employees-suffer-after-workplace-injuries

https://time.com/5629233/amazon-warehouse-employee-treatment-robots/

https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-drivers-warehouse-conditions-workers-complains-jeff-bezos-bernie-1118849

https://www.thetriangle.org/opinion/amazon-has-a-history-of-mistreating-its-employees/

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/11/amazon-warehouse-reports-show-worker-injuries/602530/

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-describe-peak-2019-2?r=US&IR=T

https://nypost.com/2019/07/13/inside-the-hellish-workday-of-an-amazon-warehouse-employee/

Amazon seems to be doing rather well with mistreatment. — Coben

True, but only because automation has largely rendered their human assets more expendable. Without their automation tech, Amazon would need millions upon millions more employees to actually work, which would give the employees actual bargaining power.

They need the ones they have and those are the ones they are treating poorly. In the current economy workers have less options. Amazon does everything it can to suppress unions. It does need the workers, or it would let them go. But it can replace them easily enough and mistreat the replacements. It's a workable business model.

I know it was callous. It also happens to be true. That said, I'd rather be in a society that reaches out with compassion to people who are in pain than one that sees them as superfluous (even though we probably all are.) — frank

Make up your mind, Frank: either you want to live in a compassionate society, and one where people are NOT seen as standardized production units that are interchangeable and removable without consequence, OR you can accept a society where employees are superfluous (we are not quite there yet), disposable, and a COST rather than an ASSET -- which is current practice.

I once heard that when workers unionize, they just get two asshole bosses instead of one since unionizers tend to be belligerent buttheads. — frank

Did this pearl of wisdom fall out of your head when you last blew your nose? Look, corporations are often quite flawed, because corporate bosses are flawed, and unions are flawed because the membership (and leaders) are flawed. "Nothing straight was ever built with the crooked timber of mankind" Kant said. Truer words are rarely spoken.

The AFSCME union to which I belonged at one time was not highly effective largely because its membership was kind of passive and timid. The leadership wasn't great, but then the membership wasn't either. Plus, the relatively recently organized AFSCME unit to which I belonged was at a public university where the administration had not thought it worthwhile during the previous century to consider the needs or interests of the people who performed all of the diverse services we provided.

Still, workers have nothing else other than solidarity to protect themselves from the predations of corporate wolves or state bureaucrats. The efforts to build solidarity may be halting and clumsy, but eventually concerted efforts pay off. The old Bell Telephone System treated its employees quite well because the Communication Workers of America had put the telephone company over the barrel enough times for Bell to fear the wrath of CWA. GM started paying attention to union demands after the workers seized control of their big assembly plant.

I wasn’t suggesting that a particular company necessarily has to be good to its employees to be highly profitable right now, but that actual overall economic efficiency (of an entire society across its history) often coincides with being good to the workers. Like how a more deadly bacterium may be individually more successful but its species be less fit because it wipes out all its hosts, or how a species may be highly successful at exploiting its environment moment to moment but then drive itself into extinction by over-exploiting it in the long term. Long term big picture success requires the powerful to see to the success of those they depend upon, lest they run out, or burn out, and the powerful who depend on them then have none to depend on. Short term parochial success is not prohibited by this trend, but focusing only on that is the literal definition of shortsightedness, and thus folly.

I think the being good to workers period was very small. And the rights and protections of workers have been eroding. Certainly once Reagan got in. The being nice to workers is fairly local both in time and space. I am not even sure we have enough information to know what the long term consequencs of doing this are. I would love it if there was a causal relationship. I am extremely critical corporate abuse of power. I think right off the bat we need to end corporate personhood and also stop treating being a corporation as a right, but rather treat it as a priviledge, which was precisely the intention of corporate charters: they could be revoked for bad behavior. I am not one who thinks if the founders intended it or said it, it is like the Bible. But they did in fact realize the dangers of corporate power, wrote about it, and tried to ensure that nothing like the East India company and its peers could come along. But they have. i would love it if it neatly created a feedbacks system. Look, Charles, when we treat the workers well, we do better. But I don't think it is neat like that and for long swatches of history labor was not treated well and very large successful by the standards of the elites societies and empires formed. China doesn't even need democracy to thrive along capitalist lines. The powerful benefit from having a somewhat to very desperate worker pool in many ways. And even if------------if it turns out in the long run that this causes them problems, I don't think they can learn that. But actually I think history supports rather than counters their basic urge to not give a shit and take from other classes. And it's not a few companies, there has been five or so decades of decline, in the US for example, of worker rights and treatment. A decline in unions, aided by neocon policies. A destruction of the welfare net, which did give workers some leverage if they knew they could survive outside of a particularly bad employer's grip. And that was carried out to a large degree by Clinton Gore. And the rich are getting richer during these decades. It continued under Obama, for all his supposed 'communism' and he brought in Wall st. right off the bat. I don't think these are stupid people, the warning signs are not warnings about things that matter to them.