This former Valeo executive used the professional email of one of his subordinates to send this invitation. The Orléans administrative court rejected his request which contested his dismissal.
It all started in 2020 at the Valeo Systèmes Thermiques factory in Nogent-le-Rotrou. An elected executive on the social and economic committee (CSE) uses the professional email of one of his subordinates without his consent to send an invitation to a swingers party at the latter's home. The message is sent to thirteen employees of the company.
Once informed, management then begins a dismissal procedure, but the executive in question receives the support of the local labor inspector, in particular because he is elected by the CSE.
Valeo does not stop there, because behind this sordid invitation there are in fact other acts of harassment.
As reported by L'Echo Républicain which disclosed the affair, the executive in question was also accused by Valeo of having “spread rumors about the state of mental health of one of the company's employees” and of having “transmitted false instructions” to a maintenance technician on the night shift.
The company files an appeal with the Ministry of Labor which authorizes the dismissal for serious misconduct in 2021. The executive then takes the matter to the Orléans administrative court to contest it.
Harassment
His arguments? The facts linked to the invitation to the swingers' party were “prescribed” and “not of sufficient seriousness” to justify disciplinary dismissal. The executive also believes that any employee can use another's email.
As for the facts linked to harassment, they were “not established”, according to his lawyer. “His dismissal is in reality motivated by the fact that his salary is high,” underlines his counsel.
None of these arguments was accepted by the magistrates who therefore dismissed the complaint against the complainant (who can still appeal). He is also ordered to pay 1,500 euros in legal costs to the company.
The administrative court recalls that the dismissed executive cannot maintain that “everyone has access to the employees' mailbox”. “If he maintains that he was not the originator of this email, simply sending it without reading it, these allegations are not supported by any document in the file.”
“These facts, which undermined the dignity of the employee even though [le requérant] was the hierarchical superior, constitute a fault”, the judges ruled.
As for the salary argument, the complainant “provides no evidence” which would tend to prove that his employer would “try to dismiss him in order to save money”.
Olivier Chicheportiche Journalist BFM Business
