Amazon management has applied for partial unemployment for its six French sites. The Ministry of Labor refused it. The unions speak of “indecency”. The closure of the French sites should be extended.
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Amazon France management has asked for partial unemployment for its six closed sites and has been fired by the Ministry of Labor, according to information published by the AFP on Monday 4 May.
This request was made on Thursday, April 30, and concerned the 10,000 employees of the six French warehouses of the American giant. “The recent decision of the Versailles Court of Appeal has obviously had an impact on our activity in France (…). In this context, we also requested assistance, as other companies in France have benefited from it ”, Amazon management said in an email.
The Court of Versailles ordered the group to carry out an assessment of the risks linked to the coronavirus within the company and to reduce its activity by then under penalty of 100,000 euros per violation found. Faced with this new court decision which confirmed that of the Nanterre court, Amazon maintained the closing of its warehouses until Tuesday, May 5. He justifies this choice by the risk of ending up with a penalty of more than a billion a day, because of the constraint and the difficulty of avoiding accidental treatment of unauthorized products. The Court of Appeal of Versailles, however, opened the list of products available for sale to high-tech, computer, office, animal, health and body care, human, nutrition, drugstore, grocery, beverage and maintenance products.
A shadow on the board
The unions CGT, CFDT and SUD of Amazon France reacted in a press release and qualified of “Properly indecent” Amazon’s partial unemployment claim. Contacted by Digital, Laurent Degousée, SUD union representative, declares that “It’s good news. It would have been incomprehensible for Amazon to benefit from the partial unemployment system. This is the group that has chosen to close its sites. Partial unemployment is there to compensate companies forced to close and penalized by the reduction in activity linked to confinement. However, Amazon continues to sell from abroad ”.
But according to him there is a shadow on the table: the decree adopted by the government, which fixes between 8 and 12 days the deadline applicable for the information-consultation of the Social and Economic Committee in order to face the epidemic of Covid- 19. This period is normally one month. According to Solidaires, “It is clear to us that this decree is tailor-made to get Amazon out of the mess in which the company has set itself by its obstinacy to ignore alerts from staff, unions and labor inspection”.
Amazon will have no choice but to extend the closure tomorrow, Tuesday, May 5, the latest deadline set by the retail giant for the closure of its warehouses, according to the union representative. “From tomorrow, they will have to extend the closure but have the 12 days to do the information-consultation, in accordance with the decree and then be able to reopen as if nothing had happened”, for “Avoid launching a fair negotiation” with them. And to regret that the negotiations had not started earlier. “They play the watch”, explains the union representative.
In the meantime, Amazon customers can still order several million products from independent companies that sell on Amazon and through its warehouses abroad.
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