In the event of moral harassment at work, the human resources department is required to act or it will be found guilty, according to a judgment of the Court of Cassation.
Responsible, but not guilty? In labor law, and in matters of moral harassment, the formula does not apply. In a company, in the event of mistreatment of one or more employees on the part of management, the human resources department may be held responsible – and guilty – for not having said anything and for having let it be done. A court decision recently rendered by the Court of Cassation and spotted by the newspaper the Express thus makes jurisprudence on the subject.
The case took place in Castres, in an Auchan supermarket. According to the survey described in stop of the Court, the director of the structure caused a “climate of terror” to reign in the store. The case was brought to the Prud’hommes.
Humiliation, manipulation …
On the basis of around thirty employee testimonies, the courts were thus able to determine that these workers were under particularly heavy pressure, with “the constant fear of losing their job for any reason”. “Many have been humiliated or witnessed humiliations”, “many are those who have lost self-confidence or who have resigned under duress”, we can still read. There was “a climate of manipulation of close collaborators, which could be summed up as follows: divide for the sake of reign”.
On November 14, 2011, the store’s human resources manager was dismissed for real and serious cause. Reason: she did not alert the management of the Auchan group, which could thus have taken measures to oust the harasser.
Ms. X … who “worked very closely with the store manager, was aware of the unacceptable behavior of the latter against his subordinates”, specifies the judgment. However, “she did nothing to put an end to these practices while in her capacity as head of human resources, she had a particular mission in terms of management”.
Guarantee
The dismissed human resources manager challenged this decision with the Court of Cassation, arguing that because of her relationship of subordination with the director, she could not oppose him and take the initiative to refer it to the Auchan group. . In addition, she explains that this same group has not implemented the structural means to denounce the abusive actions of store managers.
An argument that the Court did not hear, she who confirmed the dismissal of the HR manager. With this judgment, the Court of Cassation recalls that “the human resources manager is an expert in the assessment and management of people and teams”. She therefore considers that “by endorsing the unacceptable managerial methods of the store manager and letting them continue, the employee failed to meet her contractual obligations and endangered both the physical and mental health of the employees”.
This judgment thus shows that the chain of responsibilities in the event of moral harassment within a company can turn out to be wider than one thinks. In any case, the human resources departments cannot turn a blind eye to this type of situation and remain guilty of silence.
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