2023-09-15 15:21:08
The Defender of Rights provided a valuable reminder of labor law by publishing in Official newspaperTuesday September 12, a “special report” on a case of discrimination observed in a Leroy-Merlin store in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois (Essonne): every employee has the right to respect for their private life, no one is required to specify the content of their relationship with a colleague neither at the time of his hiring, nor during the execution of his employment contract, and the employer “cannot take into account the family situation of an employee to make decisions concerning them, in particular regarding transfers or working hours”.
In June 2021, the Defender of Rights was contacted by two employees of the DIY brand who believe they had been discriminated against by their employer. Mr. Mr. Y is hired, same department, same position, on a fixed-term contract, in March 2021. Their employer is unaware that they are a couple, until the day when Mr. of contact cases in which his companion appears.
Their managers then change their attitude. The schedules are changed, they no longer have a day off in common. The situation becomes conflicting. Mr. After having, he says, requested in vain a conventional termination, he abandoned his post. He was dismissed in July 2021. Mr. Y’s contract was not renewed.
“A managerial act of common sense” for the company
Questioned by the Defender of Rights, Leroy-Merlin does not dispute the facts, on the contrary: she claims an internal practice at the store, consisting of not having employees who are parents or couples work together in customer service. This aims, she explains, “to ensure everyone has a perfect professional balance, a peaceful working climate and to avoid any suspicion of preferential treatment for some or others” in an area of the store considered to be “ sensible », because we carry out collections and returns of goods there. Leroy-Merlin also criticizes Mr. “personal ties which linked him to Mr. Y” when he have “co-opted” this last.
As many“discriminatory uses”according to the Defender of Rights, who ordered, in November 2022 and then in February 2023, Leroy-Merlin to approach the complainants to repair the damage, to stop its discriminatory uses and to raise awareness among those responsible. But Leroy-Merlin refused to answer it, even maintaining that, “far from being a discriminatory measure”, this usage was “a managerial act of common sense”. Alas, the Defender of Rights has therefore decided to use her right, when her injunctions are not followed, to publicize a case, in a non-anonymous manner.
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