2023-11-07 18:27:11
Published on Nov 7, 2023 at 6:38 p.m.Updated Nov. 7, 2023 at 7:27 p.m.
This happened on October 26, a few days before the symbolic date from which women are considered to work for free, this Monday. Ten technicians and engineers, all unionized with the CGT, which has been leading a legal offensive on the subject for several years, have had the companies of the electronic component manufacturer STMicroelectronics convicted on appeal for sexual discrimination in career development and salary.
It is a series of court decisions which marks an important step in the battle for professional equality, even beyond the fact that they affect a sector, high-tech, marked by the “vicious circle” of an underrepresentation of women.
“All of the employees won their case for a total of more than 815,000 euros in cumulative damages” with the Grenoble Court of Appeal, welcomes the CGT, which salutes a “historic victory” and calls women to “toughly negotiate their salary increases during the next mandatory annual negotiations”.
Important step in the battle for equality
Questioned by “Les Echos”, STMicroelectronics affirms for its part that it “does not tolerate any discrimination” and “has been carrying out voluntary actions for several years, materialized in particular by collective agreements since 2006”. However, if the judgments do not refer to the existence of discrimination which would be systemic, the Grenoble Court of Appeal makes a very harsh judgment on the tools supposed to fight against discrimination put forward for its defense by the employer.
As in most discrimination disputes, the road has been long: the case, which resulted in the filing of all the complaints at the same time, started in August 2015. And it is still too early to say if there will be an epilogue: STMicroelectronics “will analyze these decisions and reserves the right to refer the matter to the Court of Cassation”.
But the judgments of the Grenoble Court of Appeal sound like a warning to employers about the general obligation of results imposed on them in matters of gender equality, including in the past. Neither the mere existence of agreements nor a score on the equality index, however excellent it may be (that of STMicroelectronics is 93 out of 100), can suffice in principle. What matters is the concrete situation of the employees.
First large-scale group action for sexist discrimination
A group action like that launched against STMicroelectronics, that is to say the accumulation of several individual procedures, is relatively frequent in matters of union discrimination, however it is a priori the first time that an employer finds itself condemned in this way. on as many cases at once for sexist discrimination.
The group action should not be confused with the group action against discrimination created by the 2016 law on justice of the 21ste century. This new tool intended to simplify legal procedures in this area, which is in its very early stages, has so far not given convincing results. The first initiative, relating to union discrimination, pitting the CGT and Safran against each other, failed at first instance.
Another group action launched by Sophie Binet’s union, this time centered on gender discrimination and which pits it against the Caisse d’Epargne d’Ile-de-France should be judged at first instance in 2024 .
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