The indignation does not abate. To “make an invisible phenomenon visible” some 80 people gathered on Friday to express sadness and anger in front of the La Madeleine Decathlon in Paris, where a temporary worker died on Wednesday while unloading a truck supplying the store. For the CGT, the death Wednesday morning of a young 25-year-old temporary worker is a “tragedy which was avoidable”. The CFDT also mentions “a tragedy” which “could have been avoided”.
The two unions had called for this rally on Friday morning in front of the store in central Paris. After a minute of silence in the presence of a handful of communist elected officials, Yanis Megal, CGT representative in Île-de-France within Decathlon, explained that he wanted to “mark the occasion, stop work and find himself a few steps from the place where [their] colleague died.”
The first union organization at Decathlon, the CFTC, did not participate in the rally, preferring to “act within the framework of staff representative bodies”, explained its central union delegate Grégory Labrousse. Thursday afternoon, during an extraordinary CSE of Île-de-France stores, the elected officials of this organization said they were “deeply shocked, but unfortunately not surprised” by the accident.
The young temporary worker, whose family wishes to remain anonymous, according to the unions, was sent by the temp agency Temporis, whose director Morgan Boar said he was “devastated”, just like “the employees who followed the file and family”, from the media En Contact, specializing in particular in customer experience and working conditions in companies.
The accident occurred “in the context of the unloading of a goods truck”, explained the Paris prosecutor’s office on Wednesday, specifying that an investigation into manslaughter had been opened. The same source specified on Friday that “the investigations relate on the one hand to the material conditions of safety at work, and on the other hand to the legal accountability of responsibilities in the accident”.
In any case, “union representatives and employees have been denouncing the dangerous nature of receiving deliveries in this store for several years,” laments the CFTC. “The process of receiving goods is special” at La Madeleine in that they “are unloaded on the sidewalk before being lowered to the basement by an elevator,” explained Fernando Da Costa, elected CFDT at the CSE on Wednesday. Decathlon stores in the Paris metropolitan area.
This “poses a certain number of problems related to security and traffic,” adds the CFTC. On Wednesday, Decathlon management addressed its “thoughts” “above all” to the young man’s family and loved ones. She recalled Friday that “at this time, an investigation is still underway to determine the causes of the accident and death.”
But the criticism from the union organizations goes beyond just the La Madeleine store. “It is not normal in 2023 for turnover to be the only compass of a company,” said Aurélie Flisar, deputy general secretary of CFDT Services, on Friday in front of the store. “If Decathlon is one of the favorite companies of the French, it is above all thanks to the women and men who are committed to their profession,” also thundered the CFTC elected officials in CSE.
The company which, like Auchan, Leroy Merlin or Boulanger belongs to the Mulliez galaxy, “had an ethic” in terms of the quality of life of employees “which is no longer a priority today”, regrets its central union representative Grégory The Bush. “The company is doing very well, but our profitability ratios continue to be more and more demanding, for the benefit of our shareholders,” he believes. “We are calling for investments in safety and quality of life at work proportional to the dividends paid to shareholders.”
Decathlon, created in 1976 in Englos in the North, generated 923 million euros in net profit in 2022 for sales exceeding 15 billion euros. The company employs some 105,000 people in 72 countries.
