Bullying bosses get prison terms and fines

The former boss of France Telecom and two executives have been convicted and sentenced to prison for bullying staff into taking their lives during a brutal campaign to shed jobs.

The company, since rebranded Orange, was also convicted of ‘‘institutional moral harassment’’. The unprecedented legal move sets the stage for collective lawsuits against French corporations accused of using inhuman methods with employees.

Former chief executive Didier Lombard, 77, was given a 12-month sentence and fined €15,000 (NZ$25,100), the maximum under the law, for moral harassment.

His former deputy and former human resources director received the same sentence.

The court also ordered the executives to pay a total of €3 million (NZ$5m) in damages to scores of former staff and the families of the victims.

The judges upheld the prosecution’s argument that France Telecom had embarked on a plan to humiliate staff into leaving the company as a way to bypass France’s strong job protection laws after the state monopoly was privatised.

It sought to cut 22,000 jobs and redeploy a further 10,000 staff from 2006 to 2009. Dozens of employees committed suicide in those years. One stabbed himself in the stomach at a staff meeting.

A report in 2010 by labour inspectors said that management used methods such as forcing people into new jobs in distant towns and giving them unattainable performance objectives.

The court heard that in 2006, Lombard told managers that unwanted staff would ‘‘leave by the window or the door’’.