This is an unprecedented situation for a group of this size, which is also partly owned by the State. For the second time this year, professional elections risk failing at Orange. While 133,000 employees and former employees of the telecoms operator were called to elect, from Tuesday November 19 to Thursday November 21, their twelve representatives to the supervisory board of Orange Actions, the company mutual fund which holds 7, 5% of the capital (12.10% of voting rights), management is concerned about possible irregularities.
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“The voting operations control commission (…) noted a certain number of violations of the electoral regulations, mainly on the part of the CFE-CGC Orange”indicates management in a message to employees published on Friday, November 22, the day after the announcement of the results. The operator's first union is suspected of having canvassed employees throughout the election, including on their email or personal number. The message also mentions “personal attacks and falsehoods”.
These incidents come at a time when the Nanterre commercial court, seized by the CFDT, the group's second union, had canceled, on May 4, the election organized in February to choose the representative of employee shareholders on the board of directors. This position has been vacant since. The judge was already sanctioning “a breach of the principle of equality of arms through massive use, by a trade union organization (the CFE-CGC), of extraordinary means in favor of a candidate”.
“We had signed a new electoral protocol to prevent these practices from happening again, but this continued. We are considering taking legal action again.”underlines Olivier Berducou, central union delegate of the CFDT Orange. In the event of cancellation, the employee shareholder fund, the second largest shareholder after the State (23%), risks not being able to vote at the next general meeting, in spring 2025.
“An execrable atmosphere”
Not ruling out filing a complaint for defamation, Sébastien Crozier, president of the CFE-CGC of Orange, reveals that he himself sued the group, before the vote was held, “to contest the new electoral protocol, rewritten by the management, hand in hand with the CFDT”.
Common in the union world, these battles would remain anecdotal if they did not have an impact on Orange's governance and if they did not demonstrate a deterioration in the social climate. Mr. Crozier himself recognizes “an execrable atmosphere”. His relations with management, whose departure he constantly demands, are notoriously difficult. Especially with President Jacques Aschenbroich, appointed to these functions in May 2022, when he himself was aiming for the position.
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