The RTE company sentenced for the suicide of one of its employees

The RTE company condemned for the suicide of one of its employees in Lyon. According to our information, the Lyon Social Affairs Court recognized the “inexcusable fault” of the company in the tragedy, which began on October 9, 2011. RTE will have to pay 120,000 euros in damages to the wife and to the two children of the deceased (40,000 euros each) in compensation for their moral damage.

Eric Sanchez has been employed by the company for 25 years and ended his life on a Sunday at home. He then left a letter to his relatives, in which he explained the reasons for his action and mentioned his discomfort, “the permanent pressures”, “the anxieties at work” since the reorganization of his service in 2008. “I am facing a wall and there is no longer a door, ”he wrote painfully.

In his ten-page judgment that 20 minutes was able to consult, the court considers that the employer RTE “did not take the necessary measures to prevent the risks” to which Eric Sanchez was exposed and to protect him from it. All the lights were, however, red. The employee had mentioned on numerous occasions “a real overload of work” due to a lack of staff, “the constant bullying and denigration” of which he was the subject of his hierarchical superior.

External report

The management of the company could not ignore it according to the TASS, which argues its decision in the light of several elements: the testimonies of work colleagues, the “old, lasting and significant warning signs highlighted” in the report by an independent expert firm commissioned by the CHSCT to conduct an investigation into psychosocial risks within the company. But also the alerts of elected officials of the same CHSCT in June 2009, September 2009, December 2009, March 2010 as well as in April 2010. Not to mention the annual reports of the occupational physician.

Eric Sanchez was arrested six times between the months of November 2009 and August 2011. Four months before committing suicide, he had nevertheless tried to resume his work in therapeutic half-time. “Mr. Sanchez’s hierarchy reacted awkwardly, to say the least, by forcing him to provide a report of his activity every two weeks at the time of his resumption, which he experienced as a cop, since such reports did not ‘were not imposed on his colleagues and that his workload was not significantly reduced and in any event did not correspond to a real half-time, ”notes the court.

“An important message”

The company nevertheless defended itself by recalling that it had set up management awareness on psychosocial risks and that it had not remained inactive. Insufficient, responds the court pointing to “the lack of concrete actions”. “The real means of prevention is to tackle the real causes of psychosocial risks, namely in this case overload and the organization of work”, he supports.

For Emilie Conte-Jansen, lawyer of the Sanchez family, the decision of the TASS comes to deliver “an important message”. “He says that it is up to the employer to be aware of the psychosocial risks and that he is obliged to do everything possible to protect his employees,” she explains. And to add: “When we modify the organization of work in an extremely important way, we must do it in concert with the employees so that they find themselves there, so that their work retains meaning”.

“This decision crowns the pugnacity of the Sanchez family, which has been leading this long-term legal battle for ten years,” continues the lawyer. They won a fundamental victory but they are aware that RTE can appeal this judgment ”. What has not been indicated for the moment. For now, the company has not responded to our request.