France refuses coronavirus funds to Amazon in labour dispute

Rfi.fr – Yahoo, 4 May 2020

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.

Vopak goes digital, but staff are unhappy about their movements being monitored

DutchNews, November 20, 2019

The Vopak terminal in Eemshaven. Wutsje via Wikimedia Commons

Workers at chemical storage company Vopak are concerned about a new electronic pass card that all workers will have to carry from next year, which will monitor everything they do, the Financieele Dagblad said on Wednesday. 


The card will record where people are, if they are standing up or sitting down and even if they have a work permit, the paper said.

‘We have our real doubts about this,’ Cees den Breejen, of the company works council, told the paper. ‘We have no problem if this is about safety but this is very privacy-sensitive. Where someone walks, if he has gone to the loo… what is the company going to do with all this data?’ 

Vopak argues that the new system will boost safety and will, for example, send out a signal if the wearer is lying on the ground. ‘If someone is horizontal for some time, then the other badges in the neighbourhood will get a signal,’ CIO Leo Brand said. 

The pass cards will first be tested in January and will also get an update allowing sound to be recorded, the FD said. Visitors to Vopak storage facilities will also be given such a card to wear. 

The personnel monitoring is part of the company’s plans to implement the use of digital technology across all aspects of its operations, including the placement of robots in tanks to monitor for leaks and sensors to check if pumps and taps are working properly. 

‘I think it will be very hard to prove that this monitoring falls within the bounds of privacy legislation,’ lawyer Thomas van Essen told the paper. ‘I’ve not come across a system which goes this far.’

Samsung Electronics apologises for factory cancer cases

Yahoo – AFP, Jung Hawon, 23 November 2018

Samsung Electronics co-president Kim Ki-nam bows as he makes a formal
apology to victims of work-related diseases in Seoul on November 23, 2018

Samsung Electronics apologised Friday to workers who developed cancer after working at some of its factories, finally ending a decade-long dispute at the world's top chipmaker.

The father of a dead 22-year-old worker and the company's co-president Kim Ki-nam signed a formal settlement agreement in Seoul as other disabled ex-employees looked on.

"We sincerely apologise to the workers who suffered from illness and their families," said the firm's co-president Kim Ki-nam. "We have failed to properly manage health risks at our semiconductor and LCD factories."

Samsung Electronics is the world's biggest mobile phone manufacturer and chipmaker and the flagship subsidiary of the Samsung Group, by far the biggest of the family-controlled conglomerates that dominate the South's economy.

Samsung currently operates vast semiconductor production compounds in Suwon as well as the cities of Hwaseong and Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, as well as Xian in China.

Campaign groups say that about 240 people have suffered from work-related illnesses after being employed at Samsung semiconductor and display factories, with around 80 of them -- many of them young women -- dying.

Under a deal announced earlier this month, Samsung Electronics will pay the group's employees compensation of up to 150 million won ($133,000) per case.

It covers 16 types of cancer, some other rare illnesses, miscarriages and congenital diseases suffered by the workers' children. Claimants can have worked at plants as far back as 1984.

The scandal emerged in 2007 when former workers at its semiconductor and display factories in Suwon, south of Seoul, and their families said that staff had been diagnosed or died of various forms of cancer.

A series of rulings and decisions by courts, Seoul's state labour welfare agency and a mediation committee followed over more than 10 years, culminating in Friday's announcement.

Factfile on Samsung Electronics, including profit and smartphone market share

Hwang Sang-ki, who signed the agreement on behalf of the workers and their families, told reporters he was glad to have fulfilled his promise to his daughter, who died of leukaemia in 2007, to prove Samsung was to blame for her death.

But he went on: "The apology honestly was not enough for the families of the victims but we will accept it.

"No amount of apology will be enough to heal all the insults, the pain of industrial injuries and the suffering of losing one's family.

"I cannot forget the pain she and our family went through. Too many people have suffered the same fate."

Trade secret

Little is known about possible connections between the production process in the factories and the workers' illnesses, as Samsung has refused to disclose what specific chemical substances it uses, describing the information as a trade secret.

Hwang and other relatives have sought a court order to compel it to release the details.

"Compensation for industrial injury is important, but what's more important is prevention," said Hwang, whose story was made into a movie in 2013.

Samsung has played a key part in the South's rise to become the world's 11th-largest economy, but it is also the focus of resentment over the power and influence of the chaebols and has faced accusations of murky political connections.

Its de facto leader Lee Jae-yong was found guilty of bribing former president Park Geun-hye as part of the corruption scandal that brought her down, and he spent almost a year in prison before most of his convictions were overturned on appeal and he was released.

The cancer scandal is one of the worst instances of industrial injuries in the South, where safety standards sometimes belie its advanced technological status.

Two months ago, two subcontractors were killed in a carbon dioxide leak at Samsung Electronics' Suwon chip plant.

In January, four workers suffocated due to a gas leak at a steel factory owned by Posco -- the country's top steelmaker -- in the southern city of Pohang.

Apple Watch supplier under fire over China student labour

Yahoo – AFP, Ryan MCMORROW, October 30, 2018

Apple has sold tens of millions of the smartwatch since it launched three years
ago (AFP Photo/Saeed KHAN)

Beijing (AFP) - Apple is investigating a factory in southwest China after a labour rights group said the tech giant's supplier forced student workers to work "like robots" to assemble its popular Apple Watch.

The report raises fresh questions about the practices of suppliers Apple uses to build its gadgets in the country following the deaths of a number of workers in 2010 apparently linked to tough working conditions.

Many of the students were compelled to work in order to get their vocational degrees and had to do night shifts, according to an investigation by Hong Kong-based NGO Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM).

SACOM interviewed 28 students at the plant in Chongqing municipality over the summer, and all of them said they had not voluntarily applied to work there, according to the report published last week.

They worked under the guise of "internships", SACOM said, a practice rights groups say is widespread in China as manufacturers pair up with vocational schools to supply workers and fill labour shortages when they ramp up production for new models or the Christmas rush.

"Our graduation certificate will be withheld by the school if we refuse to come," said one student majoring in e-commerce, according to SACOM.

The US titan has sold tens of millions of Apple Watches -- which can cost up to $1,499 -- since it was launched three years ago and chief executive Tim Cook said it was the most popular watch in the world.

Earlier labour abuse allegations focused on workers building iPhones and other gadgets for Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., better known as Foxconn.

As the world's largest contract electronics maker Foxconn assembles products in huge plants in China where it employs more than one million workers.

In 2010, at least 13 Foxconn employees in China died in apparent suicides, which activists blamed on tough working conditions, prompting calls for better treatment of staff.

Although Foxconn denied the accusations, it raised wages by nearly 70 percent at its China plants in 2010.

Urgent probe

Foxconn also admitted to intern violations in 2013, with overtime and night shift problems similar to those levelled at the Apple Watch supplier this year.

Manufacturing internships are permitted under Chinese labour law in some cases, but SACOM found the work has "literally nothing to do with learning" and violated some of the country's labour law provisions permitting intern work in factories.

"We are like robots on the production lines," one 18-year-old student told SACOM. "We repeat the same procedure for hundreds and thousands of times every day, like a robot."

Others said they were put on the night shift working from 8 pm to 8 am with minimal breaks, according to SACOM.

The Chongqing factory is operated by Quanta Computer, a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, and also produces for other brands. Quanta did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

But Apple spokeswoman Wei Gu said: "We are urgently investigating the report that student interns added in September are working overtime and night shifts."

Wei noted Quanta Chongqing was a new Apple supplier and had been audited three times between March and June without finding student interns.

Student workers told SACOM student labour was widespread at the factory.

Assembly lines that repieced together Apple Watches that had failed a quality check were almost entirely made up of student workers, one intern told SACOM.

"The factory would not be able to operate without student workers," a student told SACOM.

The NGO demanded Apple investigate and bring the labour practises in line with the firm's own policies and those of the local and central Chinese government.

Amazon workers in Italy strike over pay and conditions

Yahoo – AFP,  December 20, 2017

Workers at Amazon's Castel San Giovanni facility in the north of Italy have been
 demanding better wages and a restructuring of work conditions for weeks
(AFP Photo/LEON NEAL)

Rome (AFP) - Workers at Amazon's distribution centre in Italy went on strike for about two hours Wednesday to demand better pay and conditions, the second time workers have walked off the job in less than a month.

The workers at Amazon's Castel San Giovanni facility in the north of the country have been demanding better wages and a restructuring of work conditions for weeks.

Some 500 workers previously observed a one-day strike on November 24, to coincide with the US online retailer's 'Black Friday' sales bonanza, as did some 2,000 workers at six sites in Germany.

"Employees on the day's first shift (between 0500 and 1300 GMT) stopped work during the last two hours," a company spokeswoman said.

"A general meeting is under way and we do not know what action the movement will give," she said, adding that deliveries were not affected by the walkout.

The Amazon facility employs about 400 full-time workers but can add several thousand more during peak times.

The company said in a statement it was committed to "continuous dialogue and positive cooperation" with all employees.

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