In France, Fired For Writing To MP Against 3 Strikes

neurone333 sends along the cause célèbre of the moment in France: a Web executive working for TF1, Europe's largest TV network, sends an email to his Member of Parliament opposing the government's "three strikes and you're out" proposal, known as Hadopi. His MP forwards the email to the minister backing Hadopi, who forwards it to TF1. The author of the email, Jérôme Bourreau-Guggenheim, is called into his boss's office and shown an exact copy of his email. Soon he receives a letter saying he is fired for "strong differences with the [company's] strategy" — in a private email sent from a private (gmail) address. French corporations and government are entangled in ways that Americans might find unfamiliar. Hit the link below for some background on the ties between TF1 and the Sarkozy government.
The Irish times has an explanation for the incestuous relationship between his government and TF1: "TF1's owner, the construction billionaire Martin Bouygues, is godfather to Mr Sarkozy's youngest son, Louis. Mr. Bouygues suggested to Mr. Sarkozy that he ought to ban advertising on TF1's rival stations in the public sector, which was done in January. Laurent Solly, who was deputy director of Mr. Sarkozy's presidential campaign, is now number two at TF1. Last year, TF1 sacked Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, the station's star presenter for the previous 21 years. Poivre had angered Mr Sarkozy by saying he 'acted like a little boy' at a G8 summit. He was replaced by Laurence Ferrari. Mr. Sarkozy reportedly told Mr. Bouygues he wanted to see the young blond on the news."

Comments

...ways that Americans might find unfamiliar???

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? And how about, say, a US corporation repeatedly found guilty of monopoly abuse and never sentenced to anything but a slap on the wrist? I'm sure slashdotters can come up with dozens of examples!

Re:Probably gets a *lot* of severance pay

[Nick Ives]

Well, I actually got fired for cussing out the Shop Steward as he was yelling at me and the shift foreman had to call security to pull me off him. But that's what started it.

This is what always amazes me about people with anti-union prejudices. The steward was just pointing out to you that you were doing work for free thereby depriving someone else of employment so you swear and hit him. That's somehow the fault of the lazy slacker unions?

Also, if employment is "at will" and the firm can fire you for any reason, why do they keep the slackers? Something is missing from that picture.

I recently got appointed to the Executive Committee of our branch (I discovered there was a spare slot so I spoke to one of our reps) so I do have an interest here, but in my experience active union members are actually some of the most committed and hard-working people in any workplace.

Managers like to demonise unions because we embarrass the bad ones and are always campaigning for more pay but, when profits are soaring, of course it's right to ask for more money.

The reality is that most people who do union work don't like the slackers but, thankfully, most of the leechers don't actually bother to join unions. Most of the time trade unionists are just trying to convince managers to not be macho bullies because it doesn't actually help productivity and try to convince them to listen to their workers cos, you know, when you spend a full week doing a job you tend to get good ideas on how to improve it.

For some reason managerial positions tend to bring out precious egos in people though, making life difficult for everyone.