The indignation does not abate. To "make visible an invisible phenomenon", some 80 people gathered on Friday to express sadness and anger in front of the Decathlon in La Madeleine in Paris, where a temporary worker died on Wednesday while unloading a truck supplying the store. For the CGT, the death of a 25-year-old temporary worker on Wednesday morning was a "tragedy that was preventable". The CFDT also evokes "a tragedy" that "could have been avoided".
The two unions had called for the 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 at 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 trade union organisation at Decathlon, the CFTC, did not take part in the rally, preferring to "act within the framework of the staff representative bodies", explained its central union delegate Grégory Labrousse. Thursday afternoon, during an extraordinary CSE of the stores of Île-de-France, the elected officials of this organization said they were "deeply shocked, but unfortunately not surprised" by the accident.
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Manslaughter Investigation
The young temporary worker, whose family wishes to remain anonymous, according to the unions, was sent by the temporary employment agency Temporis, whose director Morgan Boar said he was "devastated", as well as "the employees who followed the case and the family", to the media En Contact, which specialises in customer experience and working conditions in companies.
The accident occurred "in the context of the unloading of a truck of goods," the Paris prosecutor's office said on Wednesday, adding that an investigation for manslaughter had been opened. The same source said on Friday that "the investigations focus on the material conditions of safety at work, on the one hand, and on the legal responsibility for the accident, on the other."
In any case, "union representatives and employees have been denouncing the danger of receiving deliveries in this store for several years," the CFTC said. "The process of receiving goods is special" at La Madeleine insofar as they "are unloaded on the pavement before being lowered to the basement by an elevator," explained Fernando Da Costa, a CFDT representative on the CSE of Decathlon stores in the Paris area.
This "poses a number of safety and traffic concerns," the CFTC adds. On Wednesday, Decathlon's management had sent its "thoughts" "first and foremost" to the young man's family and friends. She recalled on Friday that "at this time, an investigation is still underway to determine the causes of the accident and death."
Lack of investment in quality of life at work
But the criticism from the trade unions goes beyond the La Madeleine store. "It's not normal in 2023 for turnover to be a company's only compass," Aurélie Flisar, deputy general secretary of CFDT Services, said on Friday outside 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," the CFTC elected representatives also thundered in the CSE.
The company, which, like Auchan, Leroy Merlin and Boulanger, belongs to the Mulliez galaxy, "had an ethic" in terms of employee quality of life "which is no longer a priority today", regrets its central union delegate Grégory Labrousse. "The company is doing very well, but our profitability ratios are becoming more and more demanding, to the benefit of our shareholders," he said. "We are calling for investments in safety and quality of life at work that are commensurate with the dividends paid to shareholders."
Decathlon, founded in 1976 in Englos in the North of France, generated a net profit of €2022 million in 923 on sales of more than €15 billion. The company employs some 105,000 people in 72 countries.