The fear of a “France Telecom local”. The social malaise experienced by the regional daily belonging to the EBRA Group (Est Bourgogne Rhône Alpes, media division of Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédéral) is such that several employees of the Latest News from Alsace (DNA) questioned by The world do not hesitate to spontaneously cite the dramatic example of the predecessor of Orange, marked by a series of suicides during the years 2008-2009.
In less than four years, three employees of the Bas-Rhin company committed suicide. The first, a 43-year-old technician, had jumped from the fourth floor of the newspaper in Strasbourg in December 2019; the second, a 57-year-old rotativist, had thrown himself from the fifth level of a car park very close to these same premises in November 2020.
The climate is again anxiety-provoking since the suicide of Chantal Dou, 41, a customer relations assistant (CRA) at the edition of Haguenau, one of the sixteen local offices. The collaborator, described by her colleagues as “very professional”, “perfectionist” And “smiling”, was burnt out. She ended her life at her home on January 17, while she was on sick leave, the fourth since the end of 2020.
“Disguised social plan”
Worried, the staff representatives filed a “serious and imminent danger alert” about the employees of Haguenau and all the CRAs, fifteen employees in charge of welcoming readers in the agency while there were thirty-four in 2018. Retirements, sick leave and transfers are no longer replaced.
“It’s a social plan in disguise”, is convinced a union official. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, three local reception centers have closed out of the sixteen existing ones. While additional tasks have been allocated to them, work overload has become commonplace for this position not considered by management, according to this interlocutor.
Several journalists within the editorial staff, like employees of the advertising department, denounce a “loss of meaning”, “forced changes”, and a “lack of pedagogy” on the part of management.
A psychological unit was set up within the newspaper after the death of Chantal Dou, as well as a support group in the local Hague affected by the tragedy. A joint investigation delegation (including in particular representatives of employees, management and the labor inspectorate) must now draw up a report on the causes of this latest suicide before presenting its conclusions to the Social and Economic Committee (CSE) in the next weeks.
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