Violence, Bullying and Management: How Do the Courts Address Psychosocial Risks at Work?

Laviolette, Sandrine

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-63065-6_11

Violence, Bullying and Management: How Do the Courts Address Psychosocial Risks at Work?

Sandrine Laviolette⁵

Chapter
First Online: 25 August 2017

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Part of the book series: Aligning Perspectives on Health, Safety and Well-Being ((AHSW))

Abstract

It is easy to recognise and accept that certain occupational roles, jobs and employment sectors are difficult, or even hazardous, but harder to see how work organisation impacts on employee health. However, alongside the most publicised kinds of workplace violence, like physical or verbal violence and psychological or sexual harassment, there are other, more insidious, forms that may have a serious impact on both the social environment within the organisation and employees’ mental and physical health.

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Notes

1.
This refers to management methods used by a superior towards one or more subordinates or co-workers.
2.
Physical, psychological or sexual, occurring within the organisation or involving persons outside it.
3.
Trade unions and employers signed the agreement on 28 April 2010.
4.
ANI on stress at work, 2 July 2008, transposing the European framework agreement on stess at work signed on 8 October 2004.
5.
Article 2.1.
6.
Article 4.1.
7.
Article 2.1.
8.
Adam P., “Une lecture de l’accord du 26 March 2010 sur le harcèlement et la violence au travail”, RDT, July/August 2010, pp. 428–432.
9.
Adam P., “La “figure” juridique du harcèlement moral managérial”, Sem. soc. Lamy Supplément, 12 September 2011, n° 1504, pp. 108–112.
10.
Soc. 24 September 2008. See particularly Les Petites Affiches, 2009, n° 1–2, p. 7, note L. Lerouge.
11.
Thus dropping the narrower definition of psychological harassment expressed in the decrees of 24 September 2008.
12.
Soc. 10 November 2009, n° 08-41.497.
13.
Soc. 5 May 2009, pourvoi n° 07-45.397; Soc. 13 May 2009, pourvoi n° 08-46.610; Soc. 17 June 2009, appeal n° 07-43.947. See particularly Liaisons sociales, Quotidien of 26 November 2009, n° 15492. These decrees introduced “recognition of a wider definition of psychological harassment”, according to L. Lerouge, “La constitution du harcèlement moral au travail indépendamment de l’intention de son auteur”, LPA, 09 February 2010 n° 28, p. 18.
14.
Lerouge L., “La constitution du harcèlement moral au travail indépendamment de l’intention de son auteur”, op. cit.
15.
See especially Adam P., “Harcèlement moral: la place (incontournable) de l’intention malveillante. De l’intérêt d’une lecture combinée des articles L. 1152-1 et L. 1154-1 du Code du travail”, Sem. soc Lamy, n° 1404 of 15 June 2009, p. 8.
16.
Lerouge L., “La constitution du harcèlement moral au travail indépendamment de l’intention de son auteur”, op. cit.
17.
Soc. 10 November 2009, n° 07-45.321, Association Salon Vacances Loisirs c/ Marquis. In this case, the organisation’s director “subjected his employees to continuous pressure, constant reproaches, orders and counter-orders with the intention of dividing the team”. These practices, “with regard to this employee, took the form of sidelining, obvious disregard, absence of dialogue manifested in communication via diagrams”, which had “led to a serious depressive state”.
18.
According to article L. 1152-1 of the Labour Code: repeated actions, worsening of working conditions likely to infringe employees’ rights and dignity, affect their physical or mental health or compromise their professional future. For a critique of this legal reasoning, see in particular L. Lerouge, “Vers la qualification de méthodes de gestion en harcèlement moral?”, Les Petites affiches, 29 January 2010 n° 21, p. 9.
19.
Soc. 3 February 2010, n° 08-44.107, Sté Socrec c/Legrand. In this case, company management imposed extremely demanding goals and difficult working conditions on sales staff. For the employee bringing the case, it involved “unfounded criticism of his working methods, specifically through insulting words and denigration on two occasions in front of his colleagues, producing severe stress necessitating medical treatment and follow-up”.
20.
This decision was confirmed by Soc. 27 October 2010, n° 09-42.488, Sté Se Provencia c/Termoz-Martin. In this case, the manager of the fruit and vegetables department repeatedly inflicted pressure, aggravation and humiliation on employees in his section, including the employee in question, as shown by an altercation between them the day before he left work.
21.
Soc. 19 January 2011, n° 09-67.463.
22.
Lerouge L., “La constitution du harcèlement moral au travail indépendamment de l’intention de son auteur”, op. cit.
23.
Soc. 24 September 2008, op. cit.
24.
Lerouge, L. “La constitution du harcèlement moral au travail indépendamment de l’intention de son auteur”, op. cit.
25.
Lerouge L., “Vers la qualification de méthodes de gestion en harcèlement moral?”, op. cit.
26.
Soc. 28 November 2007, Sem. soc. Lamy, n° 1332, note P.-Y. Verkindt; JCP S, 29 January 2008, 1070, note J.-B. Cottin; RDT, February 2008, p. 111, note L. Lerouge.
27.
Lerouge L., “Vers la qualification de méthodes de gestion en harcèlement moral?”, op. cit.
28.
This was a case that did not involve a company but the employer’ s wife, who was accused of “ill-treatment” and “insults”, Soc. 10 May 2001, n° 99-40.059, Dr. soc., 2001, p. 921, chron. B. Gauriau.
29.
Soc. 1 March 2011, n° 09-69.616, Torres c/Sté EPCC Pont du Gard. This was a case of moral harrassment resulting from new management and training constraints imposed and pressure exerted by a third party under contract to the employer but who had no hierarchical relationship with the employees.
30.
Since Soc., 21 June 2006, n° 05-43.914, Balaguar c/Bourlier et a.
31.
Article 1384 para. 5 C. civ.
32.
Indeed, this may concern any person within the company (…) or a client, user, service provider, supplier, etc.
33.
Soc. 1^er March 2011, n° 09-69.616, op. cit.
34.
Law No. 2004-204 of 9 March 2004, articles 54 and 55.
35.
Article 121-2 para. 1 Criminal Code.
36.
Article 222-33-2 Criminal Code.
37.
See, by analogy, the ruling of the Versailles Criminal Court of 18 December 1995, finding a legal entity guilty of illegal loss-making sales as a result of “the company’s deliberate policy and strategy … aimed at avoiding loss of markets”, JCP G, II, 22640, note by J.-H. Robert.
38.
Fortis E., “Harcèlement moral en droit pénal et en droit du travail, unité ou dualité”, Sem. Soc. Lamy, n° 1482, of 7 March 2011, p. 11.
39.
Soc. 31 May 2012, n° 10-22.759.
40.
Soc. 8 November 2011, n° 10-12.120, Sté Canal plus distribution c/ Pierronne.
41.
In this case it is relevant that the latter did not claim to be the victim of psychological harassment, even though the facts of the case seemed to support such a claim.
42.
Soc. 14 September 2010, n° 09-67.087.
43.
See Bourbois F. “Le benchmark dévoyé”, Sem. soc. Lamy, 17 September 2012, n° 1551, p. 12.
44.
See Verkindt P.-Y., “Le benchmark touché au cœur?”, Sem. soc. Lamy, 17 September 2012, n° 1551, p. 13.
45.
See Snecma ruling, Soc. 5 March 2008, n° 06-45.888, op. cit.
46.
Versailles, 19 May 2011, No.10/00954.
47.
RG n° 11/05300.
48.
See Verkindt P.-Y., op. cit.
49.
Following the Snecma ruling of March 2008, op. cit.
50.
There was a significant deterioration in social relationships because poor performance by one staff member affected the branch results and hence the performance-linked bonuses of other colleagues.
51.
Soc. 10 July 2002, Sem. soc. Lamy n° 1100, p. 18.
52.
On the legal basis for these articles, see articles L. 6313-6 of the Labour Code on employee skills assessment, and L. 1221-8.
53.
Without the non-beneficiaries believing that they are being financially penalised (Grenoble, 13 Nov. 2002, Dr. soc., 2003, p. 988, noted b J. Colonna; TGI Paris, 31 March 2006, RJS, 2006, n° 912).
54.
See Bournois F., op. cit.
55.
Soc., 17 Nov. 1966, D., 1967, case law. p. 97.
56.
Ibid.
57.
According to P.-Y. Verkindt, op. cit.
58.
See Lubet P., d’Allende M., “L’évaluation des salariés”, JCP S, 2011, 1240.
59.
See the IBM case, reported in Le Monde 7 March 2002.
60.
Paris, 3 November 2006, Groupe Mornay.
61.
Soc. 28 November 2007, Sem. soc. Lamy, n° 1332, note P.-Y. Verkindt; JCP S, 29 January 2008, 1070, note J.-B. Cottin; RDT, February 2008, p. 111, note L. Lerouge.
62.
Soc. 12 juillet 2010, n° 09-66.339. In this case, the employee engaged to oversee the standards department, and then head the call centre was dismissed for incompetence following an audit carried out without informing and consulting the company’s works council. The role of the audits the employer undertook from time time was not to monitor employees but simply to analyse how work was organised with a view to improving service following suggestions to optimise the new organisation, so the dismissal was a genuinely serious matter.
63.
TGI Paris, 6 March 2012, n° 11/15323.
64.
Soc., 27 March 2013, n° 11-26.539. In this case, trade union organisations and the Board of Hewlett Packard France objected to a new evaluation system that forced the evaluator to rank employees in five categories (from least to highest performing) according to predetermined percentages rather than on objective, transparent performance criteria. However, although the court ruled that that such a procedure was illicit, the claim was rejected on the basis that the claimants had not furnished proof that such a quota system was in operation.
65.
This is a system of classifying employees’ work performance into different categories, while forcing the evaluator to place a predetermined percentage of employees in each category.
66.
For instance, evaluation on excessively high performance requirements.

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Centre for Comparative Labour and Social Security Law (COMPTRASEC UMR 5114), French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
Sandrine Laviolette

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COMPTRASEC UMR5114, CNRS, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
Loïc Lerouge

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Laviolette, S. (2017). Violence, Bullying and Management: How Do the Courts Address Psychosocial Risks at Work?. In: Lerouge, L. (eds) Psychosocial Risks in Labour and Social Security Law. Aligning Perspectives on Health, Safety and Well-Being. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63065-6_11

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63065-6_11
Published: 25 August 2017
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-63063-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-63065-6
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