Union power plants obtain a legal victory against Orpea

Justice canceled, on Monday, the 2019 professional elections within the EHPAD group, actually recognizing suspicions of fraud for the benefit of the “Maison” union, Arc-en-ciel.

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“It’s a judgment that leaves it hungry, a ham-butter sandwich, but without butter”, quips M e Daniel Saadat, lawyer for the CFDT. In its deliberation, the proximity court of Puteaux (Hauts-de-Seine) gave largely reason, on Monday, September 12, to the union centers in their litigation against Orpea. They had brought to justice the giant of private commercial retirement homes, in the turmoil since the numerous revelations, in January, of the book Les Foussoyeurs (Fayard, 400 pages, 24 euros), by journalist Victor Castanet. A component of the work focused on the way in which the group had favored a “house” union, baptized Arc-en-ciel, to positions more favorable to management, to the detriment of the other union centers.

A favoritism that had materialized in particular during the professional elections of June 2019 for the group’s social and economic committee. These had, according to the testimony in the work of a former employee of human resources in Orpea, Camille Lamarche, was the scene of many irregularities: voting equipment sent to the bad address when the employee was identified as close to the CGT; CFDT faith professions omitted from certain electoral envelopes, pressure on the management of establishments so that they obtain from their employees votes for rainbow rather than for large power plants … an effective campaign, since the latter s ‘was cut the lion’s share with twenty-five seats out of the thirty-five to be filled within the body.

It will be necessary to redo the election: the judges of Puteaux agreed to the CGT, the CFDT and FO, which obtained the cancellation of the ballot. At the hearing, the unions’ councils had hammered that the group’s human resources department had violated its “obligation of neutrality”, when Gilles Bonlarron, the lawyer of Orpea, pleaded the prescription, since the law gives fifteen days Contested the results of an election … except in the event of a complaint for fraud. “If the action is deemed admissible, it is because the fraud is noted,” concludes M e Etienne Margot-Duclot, who represented the CGT. For him, this is the “logical continuation of revelations” of Mr. Castanet’s book.

Less enthusiastic, M e Saadat notes that the court did not grant the other request from the power stations of a questioning of the representativeness of the Arc-en-Ciel union, which they consider that it does not meet the legal criteria for an organization of workers, who notably impose independence from the employer.

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/Media reports.