#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #FRANCE #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) #France, UCL AL #329 - Unionism, Launchers and whistleblowers A coalition to loosen the gag (ca, de, it, fr, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 In finance, in chemicals, in the nuclear industry... They and they divulge

compromising information for employers. And often pay a high price: dismissals,
lawsuits, harassment, threats... From now on, the law protects them better, and a
coalition of unions and associations accompanies these saboteurs of modern times.
---- Alert the construction industry ! On construction sites in France, nearly
25,000 workers use the Proflow Asbestos mask against asbestos dust.
Unfortunately, they may have been inhaling these carcinogenic particles without
their knowledge for years. In 2018, an employee of the manufacturer, 3M, alerted
to the dangerousness of these masks, the ventilation of which would malfunction
without warning. Faced with 3M's inaction, it warned the Ministry of Labour...
which only reacted in October 2021, after an investigation in Liberation[1].
Remained anonymous, the 3M employee is now accompanied by the House of
Whistleblowers (MLA), a structure founded in October 2018 by 17 unions and
associations (including Solidaires, SNJ, Ugict-CGT, Greenpeace, Gisti, Attac,
Citizen Sciences, the Criigen...). Spontaneously, the phenomenon of
whistleblowers is rarely associated with the trade union movement. This is wrong,
because it is similar to what revolutionary syndicalists described, in the 1900s,
as "open-mouthed sabotage" (see box). We can even consider that union support for
whistleblowers is a brick in the construction of eco-unionism, which defends both
the interests of employees and the biosphere.

In companies, whistleblowers are generally executives with access to information
of a high level of confidentiality. No longer able to bear to cover practices
harmful to the general interest, they and they decide to reveal everything. But
the price is often very heavy: dismissal, harassment or even threats, and above
all "gag proceedings" - legal attacks for "defamation" which can last for years,
and whose objective is not to win on the merits, but to exhaust and ruin the
whistleblower.

This is what happened to people who revealed the tax evasion schemes of the rich
like Stéphanie Gibaud at UBS in 2008, Hervé Falciani at HSBC in 2009, Antoine
Deltour in 2010 with the LuxLeaks, Olivier Thérondel in 2013 in the case
Cahuzac... We can also cite Jacques Poirier, dismissed in 2003 by Sanofi (heparin
affair), who was vindicated by the courts after twelve years of proceedings. More
recently, under the pseudonym "Hugo", an executive of the Tricastin nuclear power
plant denounced a systematic "policy of concealment" of safety incidents in the
plant[2].

How to get status
In 2016, under pressure from unions and associations, and repeated revelations,
the legislation evolved to provide protection to these employees.

First there was the Sapin II law in December 2016, which created the status of
whistleblower... but made it almost inaccessible. To obtain it, it required three
steps to be followed: first report the problem (and therefore report yourself)
internally, to your hierarchy (very dissuasive); in the absence of a reaction
from the hierarchy, make an external report to the administrative or judicial
authority, or to a professional order (less risky); and as a last resort, move to
public disclosure.

In October 2019, a European directive was passed, more protective than Sapin II.
Employers have slowed down its transcription into French law in the name of
respect for "business secrecy". But finally, the Waserman law, adopted in
February 2022, made further progress. The criteria for recognizing the status of
whistleblower have been relaxed, and it is now possible to choose between
internal reporting and external reporting to the competent authority, to the
Defender of Rights, to justice or to a European body. .

Public disclosure is only possible under certain conditions: absence of
processing by the competent authority; suspicion of collusion between the
competent authority and the employer; "imminent or manifest danger to the general
interest".

However, make no mistake: the "protection" provided by whistleblower status
remains quite relative. It prohibits "reprisals" (dismissal, demotion, transfer,
non-renewal of CDD, etc.)... that the employer may try to justify otherwise, but
the burden of proof will be on him. And it prohibits "gag procedures"... but only
punishes them with a derisory fine of 60,000 euros.

This is why the most important thing about the Waserman law is that it extends
protection to "facilitators" helping the whistleblower, whether they are
relatives, colleagues or "non-profit legal persons". lucrative" - therefore
unions and associations. This is the guarantee that the whistleblower will no
longer be isolated, and will be able to better face the trials that await him.

Today, it is therefore necessary to let employees who are burning to denounce an
"imminent or manifest danger for the general interest" coming from their company
know that the best tactic is to turn to the MLA and its secure communication
channels. . In its first two years of activity, it recorded no less than 700 reports.

Guillaume Davranche (UCL Montreuil)

ref: House of whistleblowers: https://mlalerte.org

"SABOTAGE BY OPEN MOUTH"
In the years 1900-1910, revolutionary unionism considered sabotage as a possible
tactic of workers' struggle, complementary to strikes or boycotts.

In 1910, the expression "whistleblowing" did not exist, but the anarchist Émile
Pouget, then éminence grise of the CGT, spoke of it as a variant of worker
sabotage, which he called "sabotage par la bouche opened ".

It was for conscientious workers to denounce, to consumers, the "management
sabotage" committed to increase profits at the risk of public health.
Construction workers denouncing construction defects hidden by the contractor;
grocer's boys denouncing tricks and tricks designed to swindle housewives; cooks
denouncing the filthy chemical expedients used in the kitchen...

Faced with the bourgeois press which denounced, in worker sabotage, an act of
delinquency, Pouget valued on the contrary an act of high social conscience. If
employers' sabotage "kicks in the stomach", he wrote in 1907 in an op-ed in the
daily Le Matin, workers' sabotage, on the other hand, only hits the "safe": "it
does not ruin health, but simply employer's scholarship. The theme of the
"intelligent saboteur", friend of the consumer, was widely used in trade union
propaganda.

l See the study "Worker Sabotage 1909-1913" on Tropjeunespourmourir.com

To validate

[1]"Asbestos removal: alert on the mask", Liberation, September 16, 2021.

[2]Le Monde of November 12, 2021.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lanceuses-et-lanceurs-d-alerte-Une-coalition-pour-desserrer-le-baillon
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