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| Following last month's court ruling, Amazon shut down its sites in France AFP/File |
Paris (AFP) -France's labour ministry said Monday that it denied a request by Amazon for emergency funds to pay employees during the coronavirus crisis, after the US giant shut its warehouses over a court order to sell only essential items.
The
ministry said Amazon France asked last Thursday to benefit from coronavirus
crisis funds that cover about 84 percent of net pay for workers facing temporary
layoffs because of a drop in business.
Amazon
France confirmed it sought the funds to cover salaries for some 10,000
employees at its six main distribution sites in the country.
The online
retailer has been locked in a battle with labour unions which say not enough
was done to mitigate contagion risk for staff working in close proximity to
process a flood of orders amid the nationwide lockdown, which saw traditional
shops shuttered.
Last month,
an appeals court upheld a ruling that sharply curtailed Amazon's operations and
ordered management to review safety measures. The court said only digital
products, office equipment, groceries, medical and personal care products could
be delivered in the meantime.
But Amazon
said it was impossible to comply with the order, and completely shut down the
six sites from mid-April until May 5, though it maintained full pay for
employees.
"The
recent decision by the Court of Versailles has obviously had an impact on our
French operations... As a result, we filed for the help that other companies in
France have benefited from," the company said in a statement.
"Our
logistics operations are technically complex and the court's fine of 100,000
euros ($109,000) for any infraction means that even accidental shipping of
non-authorised products, on the order of 0.1 percent of the total, could lead
to over one billion euros of fines per week," it said.
Unions
called Amazon's request for employment aid "absolutely scandalous,"
and accused the firm of getting around the court order by fulfilling French
orders from its other warehouses in Europe.
Dozens of
employees had staged walkouts at several sites before the ruling to demand
better workplace protection during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Amazon
reported last week that despite a surge in orders worldwide because of virus
lockdowns, its profit dropped 29 percent in the first quarter of this year, to
$2.5 billion, because of COVID-19 expenses, including measures for
"keeping employees safe".
The company
is in the process of recruiting some 175,000 more employees to cope with
surging demand.
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