Trains, which he loves as much as his bees, he has been driving since 1995. In 2016, a European order required knowledge of the language used in the territory through which trains pass. He is concerned because it happens that, even for short distances, French and Dutch can intersect.
He is then asked to take an exam in Dutch. He chooses the language and, a few days before the exam, he is surprised to receive the questions and answers with, the cherry on the cake, the choice of questions. “I don’t cheat.”, he considers. He refuses to pass what he considered to be “a bogus exam”.
Pressures
The hierarchy takes it badly. He was put under pressure to the point that, on August 6, 2019, he stopped his train at Hoeilaart station. He tells users that he feels unable to continue driving it.
“The emotional aftershock following psychological pressure”will consider the auditor Reanaud Dethy, according to whom the prevention of moral harassment at work is established in view of the insults suffered by this whistleblower, now 50 years old.
This man became an archive classification officer in Brussels, then a postman and, finally, an escort for disabled users at Namur station, all without having followed the slightest training.
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“Vengeance”
The disciplinary procedure followed its course: first suspension on December 24, 2019 and retirement by medical decision on March 12, 2020. “Totally unfit to drive”it was then decided that, 48 hours before, the doctor who examined him had told him that he was the victim of a “revenge of the hierarchy”. He was unaware that his interlocutor was recording the conversation.
Gérard Kuyper, the SNCB lawyer, pleaded for acquittal. “Where is the harassment in the organization of workers’ schedules and their assignment to different tasks? There is nothing degrading in supporting users in difficulty. The criminal case was truncated. The alleged perpetrators of the harassment were never heard and neither were the doctors.”
The court is not of this opinion. Certainly, HR RAIL is exonerated, but SNCB is fined 24,000 euros.
As for Pierre Besure, he receives the provisional euro. It is up to him and SNCB to sit down at the table to establish the damage suffered by his former driver, failing which the case will return to the court which will decide.
