What’s going on at Renault’s Technocentre de Guyancourt in Yvelines where three employees have committed suicide in the past four months? This particular facility is Renault’s R&D center where 19 of the 26 new models to be launched between now and 2009 are supposed to redefine Renault and set it on the path to profitability. There’s a lot of pressure on the engineers to get this done.

The French prosecutor is looking into the deaths and even CEO Carlos Ghosn has created a taskforce to deal with the issues at the facility. Renault, like many other car companies, has been going through a “painful restructuring process” (this is corporate speak for tossing out human beings like old dish rags once their shelf life is past).

It’s horrible to work in a large company that’s constantly undergoing some kind of restructuring. As former general counsel of several technology companies, I’ve had to inform employees of their termination and I absolutely hated it. The managers hated it even more and in a number of cases, relied on me alone to do the dirty job.

But it’s a fact of life in today’s global economy. There’s no such thing as a permanent job and relying on a big firm to supply you with a steady income and an identity is crazy. Fortunately people under 30 have taken this to heart and many are focusing their energies on starting their own businesses.

I decided back in 2001 that I did not want to work on other people’s projects — I wanted to work on my projects and start my own business. There’s nothing more depressing than giving your heart and soul to a project (someone else’s) for years and then being kicked out like an old broken toy. I can understand the despair that drove those engineers to kill themselves, the despair that is never taken into account in the decision making process of a large corporate machine.

That is why people have to take matters into their own hands and start their own projects. It’s fruitless to go on strike and demand wage concessions or do any of the things that the traditional labor movements have done. I think there is still a place for this — I’m all for improving working conditions and giving people more free time. But really in the long term, humans are better off working outside large organizations and working on things that are close to their hearts.

I will post more on this topic in the coming weeks.

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