Sunday, 7 December 2014

Should Julie Bishop be afraid? - The AIM Network

Should Julie Bishop be afraid?

December 8, 2014
Written by:
Kaye Lee
21 Replies

Rumour has it that Kevin Andrews will not contest the next election
and Peta Credlin will be gifted the safe seat of Menzies, and there are
good reasons why this might prove to be true.

Both are big players in Abbott’s Star Chamber as is Credlin’s
husband, Brian Loughnane. They certainly have the power to make this
happen.

”As for a Cabinet re-shuffle, “it’s really Tony and Peta’s decision,
there’s no point pretending otherwise”, the MP said, referring to the
Prime Minister and his chief of staff Peta Credlin, who has been
criticised for a perceived excess of power within the government.”

At first I thought Andrews unlikely to give up his position but on further reflection there could be some contributing factors.

Like the realisation that he is never going to become Prime
Minister. A couple of weeks before Tony Abbott rolled Malcolm Turnbull,
Kevin Andrews made an unsuccessful bid for the leadership. While he
seems to wield more power behind the scenes that Tony Abbott, he doesn’t
get to do the handshaking. Perhaps he feels he can do better
elsewhere.

He may return to his marriage counselling business since there is
plenty of government money on offer there. His publications could
become required reading as Andrews is an Adjunct Lecturer in Politics
and in Marriage Education in the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and
Family in Melbourne – an institution that has also just benefited from
newly offered government funding.

Andrews has been able to reward his backers. How else could one describe his repealing of gambling reform laws?

He has been able to impose his ideology in everything from school
chaplains to the categorisation as “leaners” of anyone who uses his
department’s services.

He has been able to oppose stem cell research, voluntary euthanasia, RU-486, and marriage equality.

As Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Andrews set the tone for
Scott Morrison when he revoked on character grounds the visa of Dr
Mohamed Haneef, who had been granted bail on charges of aiding
terrorists. After the Director of Public Prosecutions dropped all
charges against Haneef, Andrews refused calls to reinstate Haneef’s
visa, stating that his personal evidence was still valid. Andrews’
justification of his decision, on the basis that he had a reasonable
suspicion that Haneef had associated with suspected terrorists and
therefore failed the test of good character that a person must pass to
keep a visa, was rejected in the Federal Court, and the revocation of
Haneef’s visa was overturned.

We have just voted to remove these safeguards.

Andrews is also a climate change sceptic so he can feel successful in dismantling any action on that too.

All in all, Kevin probably thinks job well done.

If, like me, you have wondered why Peta Credlin takes a seat at the
table in all meetings with foreign leaders, why she gets to host soirees
for Murdoch hacks and radio shock jocks at Kirribilli House, why she
gets to decide who gets what job and who may speak to the media and what
they may say, it may be now a bit clearer.

It seems obvious that Tony will have to be dumped sooner or later.
Could Peta be a double agent? After all, she is the person advising him
and look how abysmally he is doing.

My prediction? Peta wants to be Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade on her way to the top job.

Look out Julie, the turd polisher is making a run.

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Saturday, 6 December 2014

'Abbott lies' web domain names registered in Liberal party name

Australian politics

'Abbott lies' web domain names registered in Liberal party name

Bill Shorten seizes on discovery as evidence the prime minister ‘knew Australians would be angry about his lies’

Liberal site — **Anyone who visits the addresses is redirected to the official liberal.org.au site. Source: liberal.org.au**

Daniel Hurst, political correspondent

Sunday 10 August 2014 16.54 AEST

5,737

Labor has sought to embarrass the government over the discovery that
web domain names that include the term “Abbott lies” have been
registered in the name of the Liberal party.

Web registry searches indicate abbottlies.com.au and abbottlies.net.au were registered by “Liberal Party of Australia” on 13 May, the date of the government’s first budget.

Anyone who visits those addresses is redirected to the official liberal.org.au site, which prompts people to sign up for updates and to “get the facts” on the budget. The Liberal website’s budget section includes material about “Labor’s budget deceit”.

Labor registered the slightly different abbottslies.com.au last week as part of its “lie a day” campaign against Tony Abbott.

Several Twitter users noticed the redirection last week and the Daily Telegraph reported on the apparent pre-emptive Liberal party tactic on Sunday.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten,
seized on the discovery as an “incredible irony” and evidence that the
prime minister “knew Australians would be angry about his lies”.

“On the very night when Tony Abbott was breaking all his promises, the Liberal party was buying these websites,” Shorten said.

Shorten also ridiculed the rival websites on Twitter on Sunday: “No matter if you visit http://abbottlies.com.au or http://abbottslies.com.au, all you’ll get is @TonyAbbottMHR’s lies.”

But a Guardian Australia search of web domains reveals other sites
targeting Labor over lies were also registered in the Liberal party’s
name. These include laborlies.com and laborlies.com.au and gillardlies.com.au.

The laborlies.com domain was first created in 2008, according to domain name records, and still redirects to a dedicated part of the Liberal website seeking to counter a “highly targeted and personal campaign against our leader” ahead of the 2013 election.

There is no active website for anyone visiting gillardlies.com.au.

“Cybersquatting”
on domain names is not a new phenomenon, with web users sometimes
registering websites to try to later extract a profit from a company or
personality that wants to secure the address. Political campaigners sometimes have to take preventive action by registering website addresses that may be unfavourable to their side.

In 2010, the New York Times reported on how Republican and Democratic politicians had been targeted by opponents who snapped up website addresses in their names to spread the alternative points of view.

The official Liberal website cites the opposition’s declaration of
the need to “save Medicare” as an example of “Labor deceit”. The site
says the government is “asking everyone to make a modest contribution to
ensure that Medicare is sustainable for the long term”.

The former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello told Ten’s Bolt Report on Sunday the government should abandon the $7 GP co-payment because it could not pass the Senate.

Tuesday, 2 December 2014

Greedy Murdoch bulldozes Abbott into slashing the ABC

Rodney E. Lever 3 December 2014, 6:00am 12

Media Politics

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Rupert Murdoch has ruthlessly bulldozed Tony Abbott into
slashing government funding for the ABC, Australia's most abundant
source of generally accurate and fair news reporting, entertainment and
general interest for nearly a hundred years.

Murdoch was following in the footsteps of his father, Sir Keith Murdoch,
who tried for many years to bully former Prime Minister Robert Menzies
into doing the same thing — selling and commercialising the ABC. But
Menzies knew how important the ABC was to Australians, particularly in
the years of the wars with Germany and Japan. He knew its importance and
popularity in Australia and any attempt to commercialise it would be
fatal to his or any other government.

No other source in Australia could possibly provide the level of
services of the ABC offered both in wartime and peacetime. Links with
the BBC in London produced such events as the Normandy invasion in real
time broadcasting. In peacetime, the ABC was the first choice for
international cricket and the Olympic Games.

Keith Murdoch had to be satisfied with one licence to operate a
commercial radio station in Melbourne and, later, two television station
licences — one in Melbourne and another in Brisbane.

But the Murdochs, father and son, were greedy as always. For two
generations they have wanted everything: to control all the news as they
chose in their own way and to publish it and gain the political power
that came with it, and to make vast sums of money through advertising.

Rupert Murdoch's Foxtel in Australia and Fox News in the U.S. are carrying on the family tradition, with Rupert's two sons hanging on to take over at the appropriate time.

Foxtel uses our taxes – yours and mine – to provide services snitched
from the ABC free of charge to present it on the Foxtel service. It has
been revealed that it costs the ABC – and therefore taxpayers – $6 million a year for the privilege of broadcasting its content on Foxtel.

For Rupert, the news and information and entertainment services come
from his 21st Century Fox, not only to fund American TV, but to also
support the money-losing side of his publishing empire in Australia and
the United States.

In England, his papers still make a profit, but their future
operations may lie in the hands of an incoming Labor government when the
continuing police investigations are concluded. Also at risk are his huge TV investments in the UK and Europe.

In the U.S. his future is governed by the continuing investigations
being carried out by Scotland Yard and the FBI as they continue
collecting evidence into who paid the bribes to secure favors from
government officials.

In the meantime and for a foreseeable future, Rupert's U.S. Fox TV operates mainly by a cable network spanning most of the American states.

As long as Murdoch is allowed to use the U.S. cable system he will be
able to continue and expand. Cable operators pay fees to Murdoch's Fox
for the services provided while the cable system itself is in the final
control of the U.S. government through the Federal Communications Commission.

The worst result would be a conviction that would have enormous consequences for his companies and his shareholders.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Thursday, 27 November 2014

Open Letter to the corporations and people of the 1% - The AIM Network

Open Letter to the corporations and people of the 1%

November 28, 2014
Written by:
Letitia McQuade
2 Replies

Dear Winners,

Congratulations on all your achievements. You have all played the
game of capitalism like absolute champions, and you are, without doubt,
superlative operatives of the capitalist system. Kudos to you.

Obviously it has taken a huge amount of vision, hard work, guts and
determination to get you to where you are now, and I think every one
agrees you should be duly compensated for all your (and your employees)
efforts; and I am personally relieved to know that you have all been
sufficiently remunerated so as to never want for anything ever again.
Once again, kudos to you.

While I am absolutely dazzled by your stellar successes, there are a
few things about the way you conduct your lives and businesses that I
find quite baffling, and I was hoping you might be able to clear up my
confusion.

Firstly, I want to share a little something with you that we in here 99% have known for quite some time…

YOU’VE WON ALREADY!

With the richest 85 people in the world now owning the same amount of wealth as the 3.5 billion
who make up the poorer half of the world’s population, there can be no
question, in the game of acquisition you are the undisputed winners. NO
CONTEST!

So here’s what puzzles me… Do you not realise the game is over and that you have won?
Because quite honestly the way you are carrying on, it’s like a boxer
relentlessly pummelling an opponent that is passed out on the ropes,
it’s just not sportsmanlike, and really, it’s not making you look good.

In spite of all your wealth and unmitigated successes you continue
slash real wages, cut costs, off shore, out source, trim benefits, buy
off politicians, lobby for favourable legislation, dodge taxes, and
exploit loopholes with a staggering rapacity. In your relentless drive
for profit you mercilessly exploit sub living wages, control the public
discourse through your media domination, and poison and pollute our
world with utter impunity.

So my question is this…. why are you continuing to play hard ball when you have so clearly already won? Surely
at a certain point the figures displayed on your profit statements must
start to seem fairly abstract? What on earth are you hoping to achieve?
Do you really need a better quarterly result? What for? You already
have everything that money could possibly buy you. And quite frankly if
being stupefyingly wealthy hasn’t made you happy yet, it’s bordering on
disillusion to think that a few more zeros on your balance sheet are
going to do the trick.

And if you are truly happy with all you have achieved, then don’t you
think it might be just the teensiest bit psychopathic to keep on
punching when the fight is so clearly over?

While I personally find your unabated appetite for capital
acquisition somewhat unfathomable, it obviously makes perfect sense to
you, (either that or you have never actually sat down to analyse the
broader costs and benefits of your chosen course).

Given the utter pain, despair and deprivation suffered by the worlds poor, (such
as the average Bangladeshi garment worker who works 12 hours a day, 7
days a week in dangerous, overcrowded conditions for a paltry $38 a
month), I am sure you must have some very good reasons for your
steadfast persistence in squeezing those at the bottom ever harder.
Although I struggle to understand what those reasons may be I have, in
my speculations, come up with a few possibilities.

1. You are competing amongst and against yourselves.

I suspect there is a fair bit of this going on among you 1% ers’.
It’s not enough that you have well and truly surpassed the 99%, (it
would appear that that victory has long since lost it’s taste); now it’s
just a competition between you 1% er’s to see who’s got the biggest
bank account/company/summer house/yacht.

I find it difficult to attach any other motive to the recent attempt
by Rupert Murdoch (one of your most famous poster boys) to acquire Time
Warner. At 85 years of age, the builder and controller of the largest
News Empire on the planet is still playing for more? Doesn’t he realise
that to most people this just looks like the chest beating, ego pumping
manoeuvre of a recently cuckolded old man trying desperately to prove
that he’s still top dog? Kind of tragic really, and a little
undignified.

The sad fact is this is not a game that can be won, no matter how
much you’ve got you will always want more, it’s a bottomless bucket of
desire.

So let me say it once again ; if you in the 1% can not be content
with what you have already achieved, then trust me, one more victory is
not going to help.

2. You are simply acting out of blind habit and you have never bothered to stop and question what you are actually doing?

I am willing to bet that this is bottom line for quite a number of
you. You learnt the rules, and you’ve played the game so hard and so
long that it’s the only game you now know. You live for the sport of it,
the hunt, the chase, the endless craving for that next conquest; the
ruthless reduction of wages, the corporate take over, the quarterly
profit statement, the pumping up of your share price, the tucking of
another politician snuggly into your pocket, this is your heroin.

You are, for want of a better word, addicted to the game. If this
indeed is the case then let me remind you of something I am sure you
already know; addiction is not a road to happiness! It is an itch you
can never scratch in an endless cycle of craving and pain, and it
effects every one around you (and not in good way).

3. You are completely ignorant to the suffering you are causing others?…
This is bit of stretch, but I am prepared to concede that SOME OF YOU
may have spent so little time out in the big, wide, underprivileged
world, have spent your lives so steeped in privilege as to have no idea
of the havoc you are wreaking, the pain you are causing, and the abject
poverty you are creating.

That said it’s worth remembering that ignorance is no excuse, neither
in the eyes of the law, or in the eyes of those whose necks you are so
gleefully standing on.

You still feel genuinely insecure? I realise that most people
wouldn’t suspect it, but there is some research that suggests the richer
you are the more insecure you feel, if this is true then you 1% er’s
must be living in an absolute paranoid lather; worried that people don’t
really care about you and are just drawn to your money, or maybe just
fearful that you might loose your money. Clearly your answer to this is
to get more money (so you will still have some left if and when you
loose a wad) and surround yourselves with other hyper rich people, (who
have enough money not to be eyeing off yours).

At the risk of repeating myself; if you in the 1% can not feel secure
with what you have already have, then trust me, a bit more money is not
going to help.

You simply don’t care about others?… I admit I find this
highly unlikely. I am sure you love your family and friends, and would
go to great lengths to protect them. What maybe the case however is that
you do not experience yourselves as part of the broader human family;
and thus those that are not known to you personally are too abstract to
you to evoke your natural caring human instincts.

This disconnect is broadly supported by a media narrative that casts
the “have nots” as either lacking in the smarts to get ahead, or as
shiftless lazy leaners trying to gouge a free ride, which makes it much
easier to see them as deserving of their wretched fate, (after all, they
are not hard working, self made actualisers like you and your cohorts).

While I understand you may find this narrative very comforting, and a
perfectly adequate justification for your modus operandi, that doesn’t
make it true. Even here in the west there are plenty of people working
2-3 jobs, 80 hours or more just to subsist, so you could not call them
lazy. And does a person possessed of an average or lower intelligence
really deserve to be denied a decent life just because they were born
sub-brilliant?

You have never read the history of the French Revolution? Perhaps
you are not aware that history is awash with stories where the peasants
decide that quietly starving is not a viable option and have taken up
arms against their wealthy oppressors. And as a general rule when they
get their hands on them, they kill them!

Now I’m not agitating for that, I don’t want to see you, or anyone
else killed; but it’s worth noting that when legislation is passed
making it illegal to feed the homeless, when you cut off the water to supply
to poorest 1/3 of a city, when you squeeze wages and benefits to the
point where employees need to work 3 jobs, never get to see their
children and can barely make rent. When you smash unions, or fail to pay
your taxes so their is no money for social support…. you need to
understand you are creating an environment you may not be able to
control. Keep playing hard ball and eventually THE PITCH FORKS WILL
COME!

You are genuinely unaware of your power to effect change. With
the stroke of a pen the Walton family could raise tens of millions out
of abject poverty, and it wouldn’t make a whip of difference to them
personally; they wouldn’t have to go without anything. NIKE could raise
the wages of it’s manufacturing staff to a living standard, and all it
would cost them would be one or two less basketball players in an ad.

How is it that you guys are not doing this? Don’t you get it? YOU HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE A BETTER WORLD for millions and millions of people.

Bill Gates it, Oprah gets it, Bob Geldof gets it, Nick Hanauer gets it, Bill Liao gets it, and whether or not you like their choices, they are all out there pitching for a better world.

I realise the system has it’s own momentum, and you are just going
with the flow, but the system is causing insane amounts of grief and
suffering to billions of people.

We have more than enough food to feed the planet, but people are
starving; we have cities full of empty houses and streets full of
homeless people; we have amazing medicines and people dying for lack of
access; there are cities with water supplies denying clean water to
citizens. Does this seem right to you?

What kind of life should a person working full time be able to
afford? Should they be able to afford a house, food and water,
healthcare and an education for their children? I really want to know
your thoughts on this, because it looks to me like you think a living
wage is way too high?

But seriously, would it kill you to pay living wages?

So I am asking you, the 1% er’s, what exactly is your end game?
Pushing billions of people into crushing poverty so you can die with
a bigger bank balance? Is that really what you want for your legacy?
Does that make you happy? Because if not, then maybe it’s time you guys
stirred things up a bit; raised some wages, paid some taxes perhaps, who
knows, maybe working towards a better world for ALL of our human family
will be the trick! It might seem like a crazy idea, but it’s worth a
try.

Like this:

Thursday, 13 November 2014

LNP SELL-OFF FNQ ELECTRICITY ASSETS, BUT LABOR TO FOCUS ON JOBS

3 Votes

Opposition
Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk has called on the people of far north
Queensland to send Campbell Newman a message at the next election and
reject his asset sales agenda.

Visiting Barron Gorge Hydro Power Station with Shadow Treasurer and
Member for Mulgrave Curtis Pitt, Ms Palaszczuk said only Labor would
ensure publicly-owned assets remained publicly owned.

“Labor’s position is crystal clear. Labor won’t sell Queensland’s electricity assets,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“We have listened to Queenslanders who have said they don’t want
their assets sold, because it simply leads to more job losses and higher
electricity prices.

“How many jobs will go in this region if the LNP sells-off our
electricity assets? How much harder will it be for families to pay their
power bill? How will the Government build schools and roads without the
income?

“We also know that whether it’s an outright sale or a lease, Queenslanders will never own these assets again.

“The Treasurer admitted last week that the only way Queenslanders
will get these assets back at the end of a 50 or 99 year lease is if
they’re willing to buy them back.

“We don’t want our children and their children having to fork out
tens of billions of dollars to buy back assets they should already own.”

Ms Palaszczuk said publicly owned land associated with Stanwell could be sold off.

“Barron Gorge is a beautiful part of the far north. The parklands
near the power station are actually owned by Stanwell. Will those spaces
be sold off as well?

“The LNP refuses to be upfront with Queenslanders about the details of their asset sell-off.”

Mr Pitt said maintaining public ownership of electricity assets was particularly important in Far North Queensland.

“The far north is a beautiful place, but as we all know it’s often
hammered by cyclones and extreme weather. That unfortunately means
blackouts and major damage to power lines and other infrastructure,” he
said.

“Our Ergon workers do a great job rapidly restoring electricity in
times of need, and rebuilding vital infrastructure in the weeks and
months after major weather events.

“That’s because at the moment, service is the number one priority,
not profits. Selling these assets to the private sector will mean
profits come first.

“I’m urging all Queenslanders, including those in the far north, to
send a message to Campbell Newman at the next election. Queenslanders
don’t want their assets sold, because they don’t want more job cuts from
the LNP, and they don’t want even higher power prices.”

Capitalism’s Victims | Jacobin

Capitalism’s Victims

by Sarah Waters

Increasingly dehumanizing work has caused an epidemic of suicides in France.

Katy Warner / Flickr

Earlier this year, a female manager in
her fifties who worked for France’s postal service was found hanging in
her office building in Seine-Saint-Denis,
just northeast of Paris. Although no suicide note was found, the death
has been linked to the company’s announcement two days earlier of
“Horizon 2020,” the latest in a series of restructuring plans that
will transform the status of workers in the company.

Far from being an isolated incident, the tragedy is part of a suicide
epidemic at a whole range of large French companies. One
such company is French telecommunications giant, France Télécom
(rebranded as Orange in 2013), whose especially acute “suicide waves”
have coincided with the privatization and restructuring of the company.

Twelve France Télécom employees took their own life in 2008, nineteen
in 2009, twenty-seven in 2010, and six in 2011. Despite a new agreement
on workplace conditions negotiated with the trade unions, there has
been a renewal of suicides recently with eleven cases in 2013 and ten
suicides since the beginning of 2014.

Work-related suicides are an international phenomenon, as evidenced by the spate of suicides at Foxconn’s production sites in southern China in 2010 or the phenomenon of karoshi, or
death by overwork, in Japan. Yet France stands apart for the sheer
number of work-related suicides, the media coverage of these suicides,
and the intense legal and political debates that have followed. (With a suicide rate
of 14.7 per 100,000 inhabitants, France also has one of the highest
rates of suicide in Europe and one that is double that of the UK and
three times that of Spain and Italy.)

The connection between an act of suicide and workplace conditions is
extremely difficult to establish and is often an outcome of lengthy
legal proceedings taken by the family of a victim against a company. But
at France Télécom, some individuals left letters that were published in
the French press that explicitly blamed their work. Bosses reacted by
trying to individualize the causes of suicide, attributing it to a
mental or emotional flaw in the person and disassociating it from any
links to the workplace.

Critical to the recognition of workplace suicides as a social
phenomenon in France has been the role of a new syndicalist structure
created in 2007, the Observatory of Stress and Forced Mobility (L’Observatoire du stress et des mobilités forcées).
In the face of intense hostility by company bosses and mainstream trade
unions, the Observatory succeeded in bringing suicides to public
attention, attracting widespread media coverage and pursuing France
Télécom bosses before the courts.

Sarah Waters recently spoke with Patrick Ackermann, trade union
leader within the leftist Solidaires Unitaires Démocratiques (SUD) and
one of the founders of the Observatory.

You started working at France Télécom nearly thirty years ago. Can
you tell me a little about what it has been like working for this
company?

When I joined France Télécom in 1987 as a supervisor on the telephone
lines, it was a cutting-edge, dynamic company with a young workforce
who were driven by a sense of public service. We believed that we were
part of a grand project to deliver fair and equal access to telephone
services across the country.

As a public-sector company, we shared a distinctive working culture
based on a sense of universal mission, of the general interest, and of
egalitarianism. There was a sense of pride and patriotism in what we did
and the workforce was marked by a strong sense of solidarity.

Like other telecommunications companies, we faced pressures from the
European Union during the 1990s to privatize and open up our capital to
financial markets. Because trade unions were very strong at France
Télécom and because they resisted privatization, the French government
delayed this process until much later than in other European countries.

The privatization of France Télécom began in 1996 when shares were
placed on financial markets, although the state retained majority
ownership until much later. Employees accepted this partial
privatization on the grounds that they would retain their public service
status as fonctionnaires, which meant they could keep certain benefits, including job security, and that they couldn’t be legally fired.

After privatization, company bosses engaged in a frenzied acquisition
of telecommunications companies outside of France and as a result, the
company accumulated massive debts. The dotcom crash led to a dramatic
collapse in the value of its shares and created further financial woes
for the company.

By 2001, France Télécom was designated as the most indebted company
in the world, and Moody’s downgraded its shares to the status of junk
bonds. This meant that when Didier Lombard took over as CEO in 2005, he
had one overriding objective: to slash costs through massive lay-offs.

Twenty-two thousand jobs were to be shed in two years. Since 80 percent of workers were fonctionnaires and
therefore unsackable, management resorted to more insidious
psychological tactics to force them to leave the company. They engaged
in what might be described as terror tactics that targeted individuals
by every means possible.

Some employees received a barrage of e-mails from managers exhorting
them to find work elsewhere. Others were forced to change jobs or move
to new cities on a continuous basis as managers sought to destabilize
their working life. Others were subject to interviews where they were
criticized and humiliated in front of others.

Under French law, these methods are defined as harcèlement moral, or psychological harassment.

Can you tell me about the circumstances in which the Observatory was created?

We were aware by this time of a widespread unease and despair amongst
many workers across the company. Then the first suicides took place in
2008. The suicide victims came from all echelons and included managers,
technicians, call-center operators, and administrators. They included
some members of our union.

We appealed to management to respond and to investigate the situation
further, but they refused to do so. Most other unions were reluctant to
intervene on the question of suicides. We had the idea of setting up a
new type of trade-union structure that would monitor suicides, provide
clear evidence of what was happening, and use this to confront
management.

It was a struggle to get things off the ground — we were isolated,
had no resources, and faced huge hostility. Other trade unions thought
that it was inappropriate or even crass of us to want to record worker
suicides. I think that they completely underestimated the scale of the
problem.

At SUD we formed links with another union, CFE-CGC, which is a union
for managers and which unusually has a left-wing leaning at France
Télécom. We consulted researchers, occupational therapists,
psychologists, and sociologists, some of whom joined the Observatory as
part of its “scientific council.” We needed independent experts to back
up our claims if we wanted to be taken seriously.

Our concern from the outset was not to focus on individual suicide
cases, but to look at the underlying causes and to treat this as a
generalized social phenomenon.

What did the Observatory do to address the suicide crisis?

We wanted to investigate the causes of the suicides, to accumulate
evidence, and to publicize our findings. One of our first initiatives
was to launch an online questionnaire to all France Télécom employees
that was intended to gauge levels of stress in the workplace.

I called the director of human resources to let him know what we were
doing and to ask for his support. Within an hour of this call, the link
to the questionnaire on the company’s website was shut down. We then
asked employees to complete the questionnaire privately using their own
computers at home.

The results were astonishing and gave evidence of dangerous levels of
stress amongst employees at France Télécom. Two out of three employees
suffered from work-related stress and one out of two wished to leave the
company. Of course, management rejected this evidence, arguing that the
results were unscientific and they referred us to an earlier staff
questionnaire that they had conducted themselves, even though its
results were never made publicly available.

But weren’t you also able to use the media and public opinion as a tool in your campaign?

Yes, for every suicide that took place, we contacted the press. At first, it was only tabloids such as Le Parisien or right-wing newspapers such as Le Figaro that were interested. Le Parisien
did a two-page feature on one suicide case. They liked the
sensationalist aspect of what was going on and took full advantage of
this. However, soon the mainstream press and television began to take
notice.

In July 2009, there was a well-publicized case of suicide by a
fifty-one-year-old, Marseille-based engineer who left a letter that was
published in detail in the French press. He was a high-achieving and
committed engineer whose working life was rendered dysfunctional by
incessant restructuring.

His letter explicitly blamed work as the cause of his actions,
stating, “I am killing myself because of my work at France Télécom. It
is the sole cause.” He also referred to a “management by terror” and to
constant stress in the workplace. The suicide triggered a petition
movement and a demonstration by employees in Marseille where he worked.
This was followed by a mobilization at national level.

A series of television programmes also covered the suicides, and the
French government began to get worried. The minister for work at the
time, Xavier Darcos, asked Didier Lombard, CEO of France Télécom, to
organize a press conference in a bid to put across the company’s side of
the story and to help calm the situation.

It was during this press conference that Lombard made a huge blunder
declaring, “This suicide fashion must stop.” Many people were shocked by
his insensitivity. He later tried to make out in a rather contrived way
that he had used the English word “mode” and not the French word “la mode,” meaning “fashion.”

Why do you think other trade unions found it so difficult to deal with workplace suicides?

The Observatory succeeded in articulating an immense human suffering
in the workplace that isn’t necessarily linked to material or physical
conditions but to a more deeply-rooted sense of distress. This stemmed
from forms of management that subjected the individual to psychological
pressures and destroyed his or her relationship to the workplace and to
others.

Drudgery is now much more psychological as workers are exhorted to
engage their whole selves in the economic goals of the company. Unions
found it difficult to address this form of suffering because it is
unseen and intangible.

It is difficult to represent this within the conventional language
and symbolism of trade-union militancy, which often draws on images of
physical strength and masculinity. Some saw the suicides as an
individual and medical problem that had nothing to do with union
activism.

It is interesting that at France Télécom, many suicide victims had a
similar profile: most were male technicians in their fifties who had
worked at France Télécom for over thirty years and had been pressured by
management to join the “front line” of the company, selling products
and services in a call center.

Technicians who had accumulated long years of experience and who held
a distinct sense of professional identity were forced to recite words
from a script over the phone and to push customers to buy products. In
call centers, they were subject to intense surveillance, were punished
if they arrived to work a few minutes late, and had to ask permission to
use the toilet.

These technicians lost all sense of self-worth, autonomy, and
professionalism. Instead of trying to draw on their professional
experience, the company sought to erase this and reduce them to talking
robots.

To what extent are these suicides a new and extreme form of
protest that reflects a collapse of traditional forms of collective
mobilization?

At France Télécom, trade unions were considerably weakened during the
period of privatization. Management sought to break existing forms of
worker solidarity including union membership. Such solidarity was at
odds with the company’s vision of becoming a global player with a
workforce attuned to changed economic conditions of speed, flexibility,
and mobility.

The aim of the policy of forced mobility was not only to push
individuals to leave the company, but also to disrupt existing forms of
collective relationship. The message was that each worker was alone in
the face of management and had to bear personal responsibility for the
economic successes or failures of the company. The old culture of
solidarity and collective representation had to be done away with.

Suicides often have a social dimension seeking to achieve strategic
ends beyond a person’s death. Letters left by individuals may denounce
workplace conditions, point the finger at bosses, or appeal for broad
social change. In some cases a detailed portfolio of documents has been
left to allow others to mount a legal suit against the company. These
are objectives more readily associated with social protest.

Did the Observatory succeed in changing things within France Télécom and also on a broader political level?

Yes, in 2010 trade unions and management took part in a series of
negotiations to set up a new agreement on working conditions. It was the
French government itself that insisted that France Télécom executives
engage in these negotiations.

The new working agreement set out principles designed to protect the
individual from excessive stress and workplace pressures. These
principles were in theory very admirable, but in practice the agreement
was never implemented and led to very little by way of concrete changes.

At the national level, the government helped to set up in 2013 a new
National Observatory for Suicide, which monitors suicide levels across
the country and provides policy recommendations to government.

One of our key successes was to pursue France Télécom bosses before
the justice system. At the end of 2009, we made an official complaint
against France Télécom and initiated legal action against the company.

As a result Didier Lombard was placed under judicial investigation in
relation to eighty suicides and attempted suicides at the company
during his period as CEO. Lombard’s deputy and his human relations
manager are also in the dock. We will find out what the ruling is on the
case next year.

In March 2014, the Observatory placed France Télécom on
“serious alert” following ten suicides at the company since the
beginning of the year. How do you explain this renewed wave of suicides?

It is important to note first of all that not all of these suicides
have been linked to workplace conditions. I would also add that some
improvements in the workplace have been made.

Management no longer uses psychological tactics that target the
individual. The company now records each case of suicide and
communicates it to us after refusing for many years to acknowledge that
workplace suicides were taking place at all.

Yet, the company is still pursuing a policy of massive staff cuts
that causes despair amongst workers. It is carrying out the largest job
cuts by any French company in the last two decades. Economic objectives
are still being pursued at the cost of human lives.

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Sunday, 7 December 2014