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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."
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."
He's better off not working for them if:
A) They employ such tactics
B) His beliefs actually do strongly differ with the company's
Now the question is under French law can he sue? If he can, the next question is will it make him less employable suing an ex-employer?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
"French corporations and government are entangled in ways that Americans might find unfamiliar."
It's not so unheard of outside of France either, believe it or not.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Wow, and I thought our (US) politicians were corrupt... thanks for showing us how it's done, France!
Maybe we can show your newly unemployed web executive how to be a litigious bastard!
It's great to share cultural differences, I feel all warm and fuzzy now!
...freedom fries YOU!
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Time for the French to start sharpening the blades on all the old guillotines - the only suitable punishment for Mr Sarkozy and his cronies is a proper beheading.
Just like in any other european country, this lay-off is most certainly illegal and can be appealed by the email's author. That's what labor law is there for.
Of course people got sacked for expressing opposing opinions long before the internet existed. French roots of labor law and freedom of speech date back to the revolution in 1789, UK workers have already fought for those in the 16th century, in Germany those rights have existed before the third reich since the 1849 revolution.
This is not really a "your rights online" article, but should be tagged "your rights in capitalism" - you have them, so use them.
They fired him for "public statements;" but as far as I can tell, he never made any public statements, he only wrote, privately, to his MP.
This kind of incident is great for us fighting this law; it produced some more ammos for the opposition in parliament, and it made the gov't look like the assholes they are.
On top of that, it's proof positive -- if it was ever needed -- of the collusion between the gov't and the major media.
French here
What's your friend describe is a "mise au placard". It's a specific way to fire somebody without really firring him.
It's extremely wrong in french for your managing staff motivations when you start to fire people without serious reasons and it's pretty hard to prove and convince every body that some body don't actually do as expected. So you don't fire him but progressively put him in a position where he don't have responsibility, interesting works, no computer, no phone, etc... and you simply wait that he resign by himself.
If he resign he isn't cover by the social protection law, so it's cheaper for you, better for you managing staff, etc...
The only problem is went you push it to far ( excessive work load, harassment, etc ) and the employ commit suicide ( Renaud technocenter serial suicide at work )
The "mise au placard" have nothing to do with this case where the employ was fired for "important fault". In this case the employer say "you committed an important fault in regard of the company, you are fired, you will not get the social protection".
Driving a truck drunk = important fault
sending a mail to his MP = ?
Even if it is not illegal under French law it almost certainly is something you could take to the European court of human rights since EU law takes precedence over national laws.
How is it any different?
Because EU countries don't have "at-will" employment as you have described.
So what? Don't work in France.
That's what the French do.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
What he did was to make it plain that General Motors would not be considered for further TARP funding if they continued to utilize the services of the CEO who bankrupted the company in the first placed.
Perfectly acceptable here in the United States. Note that there has not been a popular revolt or backlash against this. Evidently, President Obama's action in causing GM to ditch their loser of a CEO was (apparently) neither illegal nor immoral in the opinion of the majority of United States citizens.
(Incidentally, until recently I was a Republican. I actively disapprove of many of the things our current President advocates. This particular example isn't one of them)
We have both of the same in America. In the US it's called constructive discharge and in some states, if it can be shown, the employee still gets the unemployment benefits and the employer's rates still go up. In all US states, if it can be linked to one of the discrimination bans provided by law, you can sue too.
Most of the states in the US are "at will" which means you can be fired for no good/any reason at all. If it's not a good reason or not the fault of the employee, then you get an unemployment compensation package that the state administers. Generally it's two thirds of your average salary over the last six month paid in bi-weekly payments until you find another job or a year or something which ever comes first.
In companies that have unions, it starts getting difficult to fire people because the union will back them and you end up with worthless people who know they won't lose their jobs if they do the bare minimum. I worked with such a person when I was 18 at a local factory for the summer. We got paid $12 an hour plus one half cent for every 100 sets of product put out (glassware) with no defects. On the days I had to work with the guy I mentioned, my line was lucky to put out 3500-4000 sets in an 8 hour shift with a half hour lunch. On the days without him, the line could produce 5000-7000 sets. That's a piece work difference of around $20 per day extra when he worked compared to $25-35 per day when he was off. I ended up getting fired because the slacker reported me for sweeping the cardboard scraps up around my work station and evidently, that "took a job from another union member" even though no one had come around all day long to do it. 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.
I'm not French but I live in France.
The e-mail author (and most comments here on Slashdot) assumed his e-mail was private correspondence (which is usually the case in French and EU law). However, the e-mail to the MPs is *not* private, since what MPs do, read, communicate is by default public (thus making bribery, unlawful conduct and other potential crimes and misdemeanors at least harder to hide).
Thus being said, it is clear the MP in cause was not guilty of anything when she redirected the e-mail message to the author of HADOPI law, i.e. the French Ministry of Culture.
The Ministry of Culture sough to find out why somebody from the TF1, on of the biggest pushers for HADOPI, would push his MP in a different direction than the company he's working for (it's a legitimate question; imagine if a GM welder *publicly* asks for the foreclosure of GM - in such situation there would be nothing wrong for the TARP guys to ask GM what's going on).
Until here I see no evil.
Now, TF1 is not selling bricks or clothes. It's selling cultural products and opinions (plus news). Therefore, having a dissenting opinion to the corporate one, in a business of selling opinions & cultural products, clearly incensed TF1 management. On this case, I say they were right.
BUT, based on their anger, TF1 decided to terminate the employment of this guy. That's something I can't agree, yet in my opinion they should be allowed to do it.
Now, before being chopped off by the liberal wing of /. (i.e., 99%), let me point it's all a non-issue. In France NOBODY can be fired (not until they do something so terrible it makes news in Afghanistan or Somalia, anyway). Therefore this guy will certainly keep his job at TF1.
One last thing: the original author mentioned in his "private" e-mail that he's working at TF1 (that's how they were able to finally trace him down). It seems to me he was ready to add his job as a weight to his e-mail, yet when the weight went against himself he was pissed. Doesn't make much sense to me.
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com