At Orpea, we don’t really like unions, and that’s not new. Already in 2010, the world leader in clinics and retirement homes – today in turmoil since the publication of the book by journalist Victor Castanet* – called on spies to spy on trade unions.
At the time, certain clinics of the group (gathered within the Clinea subsidiary) were considered “bastions of the CGT” by the management. To prevent social movements, she imagines a radical stratagem: infiltrating social authorities to neutralize the most vindictive trade unionists. To this end, it uses a company specializing in “risk management”, Groupe Synergie Globale (GSG). Its leaders – security leaders and former “services” – recruit spies that they then place in the “red” clinics as a stretcher-bearer or receptionist, with the complicity of the HRD.
Spies charged 15,000 euros per month
Week after week, these “implants”, as they were called at GSG, write reports, which are then sent to Orpea headquarters. “The integration [de l’espion] continues”; “He began to approach the targeted people and show his strong interest in the labor organizations”, we read over the accounts. A few months later, some implants achieve their goal: “He fulfilled the form required for membership. Patricia [alors déléguée syndicale CGT de la clinique Les Orchidées, à Andilly (95)] told him that she was considering him to be a staff representative.” Now retired, Patricia Ravinet remembers this maintenance worker whom she had taken under her wing and who, she hoped, “would one day take the relay”. “I had given him access to the union office, she says. Later, I realized that documents had disappeared…”
At the same time, these “infiltrators” wrote notes on the most virulent trade unionists: “Influential ideologue, haranguing the crowds”; “dangerous”; “loses his temper quickly when provoked”; “her director says she is crazy and hysterical”… Valuable information for the management of the group, in Puteaux, who does not hesitate to pay these spies very dearly – between 9,000 and 15,000 euros monthly for each of them. On the order forms sent by GSG to Orpéa, the same name always appears on the “customer contact” line: Bertrand Desriaux. Today HRD of Orpea, “he managed the project directly”, confirms a former manager of GSG (the company is now dissolved).
Current HRD of Orpéa, Bertrand Desriaux was at the heart of the espionage of trade unionists of the CGT.
Screenshot of L’Express
“Smooth talker” and “cynical” HRD
In 2019, Bertrand Desriaux, who did not respond to our request for an interview, will do everything to promote the victory of a house union acquired by the management, Arc-en-ciel, during the union elections, says Philippe Gallais , former CGT central delegate at Orpea. The goal? “Break the unions and, therefore, any protest,” he says. Deemed “sweet talker”, but also “cynical” by the trade unions, this HRD is, says journalist Victor Castanet in his book, a veteran of the metallurgical industry. “He wanted to transpose an old process used in the past in very tough and conflicting sectors (…) Orpéa’s HRD took advantage of internal dissension in several unions to approach former FO or CFDT representatives and would have offered them a pact : if they agreed to create an apolitical union and conciliatory with the management, the group assured them privileged channels of discussion, as well as significant help.
Until organizing a fraud during the last union elections, in June 2019, continues the author. With success: the Arc-en-ciel union won nearly 60% of the vote, very far from the CGT (15%) and the CFDT (9.5%). “However, the trio FO, CGT and CFDT weighs 81% on the scale of the collective agreement of the private health branch. Look for the error!”, Comments Franck Houlgate, secretary general of the National Union of FO unions. On Wednesday February 9, the CGT initiated proceedings for “characterised electoral fraud” and “failure of Orpéa to guarantee the sincerity and neutrality of the ballot”. It will therefore be up to the court to decide.
“Nobody to Kill”
These managerial excesses are at the heart of the current debate on abuse in nursing homes and clinics of the Orpéa group. “In these societies that manufacture ‘mass services’, there is a structural contradiction between the search for economic performance, which translates into standardization, automation of tasks and strong control, and the need to establish personalized with the patients, observes Marie-Anne Dujarier, professor of sociology at the University of Paris Cité. This contradiction is rarely treated, it “drips” from one hierarchical level to another and can end up falling on the patients.”
Because it is difficult to escalate the problems. “As soon as we criticize the working conditions and the lack of means granted to the patients, we become a person to be killed, confirms a nursing assistant, who has worked in a Clinea clinic in Seine-et-Marne for ten years. So most of my colleagues, with few qualifications and therefore very vulnerable, prefer to keep quiet. And this is one of the reasons for the deviations that are being brought to light today. Because you have to realize one thing: mistreating employees is like mistreating patients.
* The Gravediggers (Fayard, 2022).