Physician, psychiatrist, member of the Psychoanalytic Association of France and Psychosomatics Institute of Paris, Dejours teaches at CNAM. He is the author of a book in 1998 which refers Suffering in France: The trivialization of social injustice.
Suicides in the workplace. France Telecom, EDF, public administration, Renault, Peugeot etc. A manager can not do not understand the causes of these symptoms. A citizen can not be satisfied morons versions clamées to wavelength. What to say?
Suicides in the workplace have begun to enter the public space in the winter of 2006 - 2007. The Dejours professor teaches us (in the exciting lecture he gave to the NAR, Wednesday, Oct. 14) that this subject was not be treated by the media before this date because it was contrary to the neoliberal dogma of the overhaul of the economy said in France by Delors, in 1983.
The book "Suicide at work" is the result of 35 years of research. If there were suicides at work before that time they were committed mainly by artisans and farmers. The idea that there might be a relationship between suicide and work was not eligible in this context.
There is indeed no company's neutrality on the world of work. To claim that the work is divorced from society is a mistake. The evidence, scientifically proven, is that the deterioration of living together not only causes suicides. The destruction of the relation to work results in particular in overload conditions ("burnout"), Karoshi (sudden death at work), musculoskeletal disorders (an epidemic in France, 500,000 people are compensated), addictions (alcohol, cocaine, drugs).
Bullying has always existed (slavery, serfdom, ... the dark 19th century, mines etc.). Taylorization work there for a century. Yet suicide at work is a "novelty". Something serious has changed in the organization of work.
In a clinical approach, the three key factors are:
1- systematically granted the privilege management criteria on labor standards; formulated otherwise, the source of wealth is no longer work but the management - management system introduced in the 1980s.
2- individualized performance assessment,
3- total quality (certification).
The assessments are false because they claim to give an objective measurement of work, a quantitative measure. Individualized notation divides the tasks, all people who find themselves competing against each other (the premium, the sanction). This competition is unfair. Thoughtfulness, vis-à-vis attention of the other crumbles, disappears. Fear creates a hateful atmosphere. Mistrust, disloyalty, deceit (total quality is a myth, a lie), self-betrayal, cowardice sign the systematic destruction of the world of work.
The hatred came into force, destroying the forces of action. The cooperation is gone. The common ground is gone, that is, as defined by Hannah Arendt, the de-sol-ation (loneliness).
Dejours goes against false explanations related to stress in the workplace (symptomatic approach), opting for the etiological explanation. Number of suicides at work by the author studied were healthy and knew handle stress much better than average.
Suicidal trap: those who passionately love their work, who are engaged in exemplary fashion business. The company asked the push. But it is not fair to them.
Exit the suicidal hell is possible provided to refocus attention on the collective management. We are still working for someone. It is essential to restore cooperation.
The work of Professor Dejours is remarkable. Concise (128 pages) allows the reader to enter advised resistance against the alienating factors of work. This is not only a fight at work, but more generally, a fighting society.
NB: It is difficult to summarize such a work without suggesting some simplifications contrary to the work of Dejours.
