Amazon France’s six depots were back at work last week after a month-long shutdown ended on 18 May. It took all those four weeks for the company to realise that it needed to fully follow key rules on safety at work, in the face of the Covid epidemic. The alternative before it was having those warehousing and dispatch centres held shut by the country’s courts at the request of all the trade unions representing Amazon employees.
The semi-state car multinational Renault, however, needed some further days before it could get its Sandouville plant back to work as the courts had decided that safety there had not been fully addressed. Temporary and part-time staff at the plant had been keen to return to work but the CGT trade union federation, with members among the full time permanent employees, asked the courts to decide whether the firm had done all that was required by way of safety procedures.
The Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and the Labour Minister Muriel Pénicaud both joined in a full-scale media onslaught on the CGT for going to court over Sandouville. Keeping the place closed was “bad for the nation” according to Le Maire. There were “trade union officials today who are playing with fire by not sufficiently encouraging employees to engage in social dialogue and to respect decisions which have been taken collectively.”
