The North American distribution giant Amazon today threatened to suspend activity in the centers it maintains in France after the French courts forced it to limit the sale and delivery of basic and essential products.
Tuesday, the French court in Nanterre, on the outskirts of Paris, gave Amazon 24 hours to restrict the sale and distribution of essential products only, taking into account the result of an assessment of the risks inherent to Covid's pandemic - 19 in the distribution centers.
For the French court, Amazon must restrict itself to “only the food, hygiene and medicine chains”, and must pay a fine of one million euros for each day of delay in applying the decision and infractions found.
The delivery of non-essential products can only take place after an assessment of the risks and measures necessary to protect the health of workers.
Amazon France must involve employee representatives in the risk assessment. The company, however, indicated today that it is thinking of appealing the decision and stressed that, with the sentence, it may be under the obligation to suspend the activity in the distribution centers.
Amazon France argues that, without the possibility of operating in the centers, it would be obliged to “restrict a service that has become essential for millions of people who wish to have access to products they need at home during the crisis.
”Of the new coronavirus. The company reiterated that the sentence left her “perplexed”, since, during the process, she presented “concrete evidence” of the security measures applied to protect employees.
In this regard, he stressed that, in the last four weeks, he distributed more than 127. 000 disinfectant wipes, more than 27. 000 liters of antiseptic gel and more than 1.5 million masks, in addition to applying temperature control and social distance measures.
The lawsuit was filed by the União Sindical Solidária (SUD), the main union of the company, which saw, however, the court deny him the request made with a view to the suspension of work in the distribution centers, where an average of a hundred employees in a warehouse behind closed doors.
Behind Italy (21. 067 killed, in 162. 488 infected), and Spain (18. 579 dead, 177. 633 infected), France is the third country in Europe with more cases of infection with the new coronavirus, having, according to the most recent official data, registered 15. 729 deaths among 143. 303 infected.
Globally, the covid pandemic - 19 already caused almost 127 one thousand deaths and infected more than two million people in 193 countries and territories .
More than 428 thousand patients were considered cured. The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected in late December in Wuhan, a city in central China.
To combat the pandemic, governments sent four billion people home (more than half the world's population), closed non-essential trade and drastically reduced air traffic, paralyzing entire sectors of the world economy.