France Telecom and the 22 suicides in 18 months, 13 other attempts!

I have heard of suicide clusters before, like the Bridgend Suicides, but this is crazy.

35 suicides in 18 months.

Lagarde demands France Telecom action on suicides

PARIS (Reuters) - French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde on Sunday called for bosses at France Telecom to meet urgently to tackle a wave of suicides at the former state monopoly.

Unions called for the state to step in after another employee killed herself on Friday. A union source said the 32-year-old woman had jumped from a fourth floor window after an office meeting.

Her death brought the number of suicides to 22 since the start of 2008, according to a website set up by unions. There have also been 13 attempted suicides. The site says there are no official statistics, either from the company or elsewhere.

France Telecom staff protest over wave of suicides

This is seriously crazy. imagine being in a meeting, and your colleague gets up and walks out the window to her death.

I am terribly sorry for the tragic death of these people but what is gong on?

The BBC tries to explain this spate of suicides statistically:

Unions blame tough management methods at the multinational, which was privatised in 1998.

BUT

But France Telecom says the rate of suicides is statistically not unusual for a company with a 100,000 workforce.

According to the World Health Organization, France had an annual suicide rate of 26.4 for 100,000 men in 2008. The rate for women was 9.2 suicides per 100,000.

AND

It points out that in the year 2000 there were 28 suicides in the company - a figure which it says is statistically not unusual.

Now that may be so, but when a man plunges:

a knife into his own stomach during a meeting

And a woman leaps of a fourth floor office building after a meeting, then you know something is not right.

What does it say about the management of the company when they say nothing is wrong, and point to the fact there were 28 in 2000, so stop panicking!

Is it just pressure of the recession, or could there be some kind of mass hysteria going on?

I just know I wouldn't want to work for a company that takes the suicide of its employees so lightly.

Kiwifoot

Thats kind of like the happening.... weird.

This thread made me think about the Marconi deaths. Seems to have a similar pattern to it. An old thread I read when I was an unregistered lurker and I think you might find it of interest.

22 SDI engineers die in mysterious circumstances

Marconi deaths

I drive past the building quite often and my mind always drifts back to the deaths.





[edit on 01/09/2009 by SmokeJaguar67]

Aye.. I very much agree that this is wierd. It is not the number of the suicides, it is the manner of them. People generally do not commit suicide in a public forum like that. It happens, don't get me wrong, but it is not common.

I work for the largets telecomes company in th UK and I can tell you exactly what the problem is.

Over managment of day to day work where the least and tinniest infraction is deemed a punishable with losing your job 30 year employees treated like crap. Unmanagible expections and stats.

What really matter to a call centre is stats nothing is more important, mine is ruled entirley through fear.

In the company I work for they are driving towards one call one resolution meaning everyone you speak to will know everything about anything that can or needs to be done to an account. only problem is its ends up everyone know little about anything

I have had 6 different jobs in my time there and I am now expected to do those 6 different jobs on the same wage.

Ask anyone who has worked in a call centre what it is like and unless they are management you will get a simmilar responce

reply to post by kiwifoot


Possible airborne contamination / mold? Telecom sites can have high voltage, magnetic fields, RF energy or microwave feeds in the area that people might be subject to?

Any type of irritant that might make people irrational.

That is scary.

People only really commit suicide under certain conditions. Alone, in a closed-off area, with something to kill them quick.

A guy stabbing himself with a knife in a meeting is absolutely bizarre. Suicide no, attention probably. If he was just depressed from demotion and killing himself I would suggest external influence... maybe he was being mind-suggested..?

I could say maybe these companies are just testing grounds for some kind of subliminal influence... then they write off reults as work-pressure and just normal... I mean people kill themselfs all the time in stressful situation and at work but in those conditions and so many... just really puzzled me.

I work in a call center for one of the largest telecoms in the United States. Everything is micro-managed and it feels like a prison inside. Fear of losing your job on the slightest error is always there. It takes 3-4 months of training to learn the systems for a new-hire, but they keep cycling people out the door for minor infractions. I would quit but it pays 100% medical for my entire family and the wages are slightly above average; the economy and fear of not finding a replacement are elements as well.

I have being working in these conditions for several years, and have seen many "incidents" of mental breakdowns take place in my building. Some of which have cause complete evacuations until guys in white coats show up to take control of the situation.

I for one can tell you that this micro-management goes on no matter which call center you are in or for which telecom. All major phone companies use these practices. The Union tries to help, but they eventually "fold" and allow the restraint to be pulled tighter on our already stressed out work life.

As per UK member who works in a call center, you are not alone. There is no escaping the treatment without finding another career. I for one am poised for the SHTF. It would be better than suicide, and far more exciting, cause then I would have a reason to quit and a much less stress out life. Even if it is scrounging for food after nuclear fallout.

reply to post by kiwifoot


From this weeks Economist:

"If I commit suicide or if I die in a car accident in the next three months or so, you will know the threats were serious, because I am not feeling at all suicidal and I drive very slowly."

Xavier Niel, the founder of Iliad, a young broadband firm which has upended Frances internet-access market and wants to do the same for mobile telephony, says he is prepared for any attempts at intimidation

reply to post by Unmask The Deception

There is a huuuuuge difference between everyday work stress and 'to the edge' work stress, with a bigger difference of that and suicidal stress, and a HUGE difference between suicidal stress and stab-yourself-in-the-damn-stomach stress!!!

There is a reason workers, 90% of restaurant people, smoke, and drink, problems away it is stressful, but whens the last time you ever saw a suicide at your work, even on the WORST day, let alone DOZENS of suicides, let alone KNIFE STABBING suicide?!

Its insane how non-coincidental it is.

Originally posted by Ridhya
reply to post by Unmask The Deception

 

There is a huuuuuge difference between everyday work stress and 'to the edge' work stress, with a bigger difference of that and suicidal stress, and a HUGE difference between suicidal stress and stab-yourself-in-the-damn-stomach stress!!!

There is a reason workers, 90% of restaurant people, smoke, and drink, problems away it is stressful, but whens the last time you ever saw a suicide at your work, even on the WORST day, let alone DOZENS of suicides, let alone KNIFE STABBING suicide?!

Its insane how non-coincidental it is.

I agree, there is are stress related suicides, but knifing yourself?

And the response of the company managers! If it were a movie it would be the scene where the director talks to the press saying that there is nothing going on, when all along he's part of a Satanic cult or something!

Who knows, working in Telecoms maybe they heard things there not supposed to, and the easiest way of getting rid of these people is to simply either drive them to suicide, or throw them from 4th floor windows and say they commited the act themselves.

However looking at videos like the Youtube below, the staff at these places must be under massive pressure to meet targets for them to be in sustainable jobs.

www.youtube.com...

There's also this weirdness that a lot of people are unaware of:

visionandpsychosis.net...

Forty years ago designers and engineers accidentally discovered
that under special conditions normal features of the physiology of sight could cause a mental break...

... The Cubicle was designed to deal with this problem and stopped the mental events after 1968.

Subliminal Distraction arises from normal features of physiology taught in first-semester college psychology. Two of those features form a "conflict in the physiology of sight." You can successfully ignore distracting movement in peripheral vision but you can't stop "subliminally seeing" it.

There are no "off switches" for the sensor cells on the rods and cones in your retina. If stimulus reaches them neural impulses go to your brain no matter what you are doing.

When you learn to ignore distracting movement in peripheral vision, the expected startle will stop but the subliminal functioning of the reflex system prevents you becoming aware of your brain's continued efforts to warn you of threat-movement.

Those neural impulses and your brain's efforts to form a startle and vision reflex are a Subliminal Distraction.

When you create the "special circumstances" so that the startle is attempted many times each hour, for several hours daily, and for many days, the subliminal appreciation of threat eventually colors thought and reason.

If the industy/job is stressful anyway and it is combined with a work space conducive to this syndrome, it could be a huge multiplier.

call centres, the new plague of the market
i work in one too, and its the same situation in canada, you are driven to slave conditions, measured on everything, dismissed for nothing, expected to know everything, from management and customer standards

typically there is high turnover in these horrible jobs, but with the conditions getting worse, and people having to hold on to these garbage jobs, i am not surprised to see this happen

a lot of posters above have no idea what it is like in these centers, its worse then a prison, at least in prison you dont have to take 50-70 calls a day and get fed

reply to post by kosmicjack


Nice, that does explain some of the stress!

Imagine this place on a Friday at 16:30:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/bfa3ca34318c.jpg[/atsimg]

Oh and thanks kosmic!

Yet another.


www.theaustralian.news.com.au...

A FRANCE Telecom worker has jumped to his death from a highway overpass, leaving a note blaming pressures at the firm which has seen 24 suicides among its staff in under two years.
The 51-year-old father of two, from Annecy in the French Alps, jumped onto a busy highway during the morning rush hour yesterday, according to regional authorities.

"He left a letter to his wife explaining that it was the work environment in his company that pushed him to act," said the prefecture.

A France Telecom spokesman confirmed one of its employees had committed suicide, saying chief executive Didier Lombard was on his way to the Annecy call centre, where the victim worked.