Justice orders SFR to offer support measures to employees of its stores

The Nanterre judicial court, seized in summary proceedings as part of the proposed sale of SFR, ordered the operator on Wednesday to present support measures for the employees of its stores, according to a decision consulted by AFP. The court ordered the subsidiary SFR Distribution to communicate to the staff representatives of its stores "an information document presenting in a precise and detailed manner the specific measures planned to support employees within the framework of the transitional period which began with the announcement of the takeover of the company's activities". This document must be communicated within 25 days, specifies the order issued by the court, which also includes a penalty of one million euros per week of delay.

This decision comes after the signing in early June, by SFR's parent company, Altice France, of a memorandum of understanding with Bouygues Telecom, Iliad (Free) and Orange for the sale of the operator's activities for 20.35 billion euros. In view of this sale, subject to the agreement of the Competition Authority, the group opened an information-consultation procedure in June with the employees concerned. This dialogue gave rise to several legal actions by the various employee representation bodies.

The company's central CSE thus saw its requests for interim relief rejected by the Paris judicial court, in a decision rendered on Monday. With the decision rendered on Wednesday in Nanterre, the CSE of the distribution branch, which represents store employees, sees recognition of a “lack of serious consideration of the psychosocial risks associated with the sales project”. New hearing on November 4 But the elected staff members did not obtain satisfaction on all of their requests.

The courts notably refused to consider that the information-consultation procedure opened in June was still open, which the CSE demanded and which SFR refuted. The court also rejected the CSE's request to order SFR and the three buyers to suspend the proposed sale while the information-consultation process resumed. A hearing on the merits is scheduled before the same court on November 4.

“Following these two decisions (...), we hereby reaffirm our desire to continue discussions in a climate of peaceful and constructive dialogue,” reacted the CEO of Altice France, Arthur Dreyfuss, and the CEO of SFR, Mathieu Cocq, in an internal email addressed to employees, consulted by AFP. The SFR inter-union, which brings together Unsa, CFDT and CFTC, called staff at SFR, SFR distribution and the subsidiary Altice Technical Services (ATS) to strike on November 3 to try to influence the discussions.

Machine-translated from French