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哪里是“工人的天堂”?亚马逊用亲身遭遇告诉你

哪里是“工人的天堂”?亚马逊用亲身遭遇告诉你

Vivienne Walt 2020-05-18
法国工会在上月起诉法国亚马逊,由于物流中心内部环境存在风险,工会会员有感染新冠病毒的隐患。

如果你想在失业率不断攀升、经济深陷低迷之时与一家万亿美元的公司一较高下,那么不妨考虑一下法国,这个国家被称为工人的天堂。

上个月,亚马逊在法国的官司便明确地佐证了这一点。在该案中,两名法官做出了有利于近1万名亚马逊员工的裁决,并告诉亚马逊未能在疫情期间给予其员工适当的防护。美国亚马逊员工也提出了类似的控诉,称新冠疫情危机让他们非常容易受到这种致命疾病的侵袭。

法国的这场斗争让亚马逊在这个全球第六大经济体中的在线业务瘫痪了四周的时间,而正是在这个期间,亚马逊的销量在这个闭关锁国、充斥着新冠疫情的星球如日中天。亚马逊的股票今年上涨了近30%。

如今,亚马逊正在尝试重新开启其法国的六个物流中心,顺利的话可能这周就会营业,但工会却说:不会这么快。

团结工会法国书记史蒂芬·恩加尔兰说:“我们会向亚马逊提供一个非常详细的安全计划,如果亚马逊不同意,那么重新营业就会遇到很大的阻力。”该工会上月起诉法国亚马逊,由于物流中心内部环境存在风险,从而导致工会会员存在感染新冠病毒的隐患。

恩加尔兰说:“我们可以上法院起诉他们。”

恩加尔兰指出,自法国出现新冠疫情以来,十几名亚马逊员工已经感染新冠病毒,其中有一名症状十分严重,已住进位于巴黎南部的一家医院。

几乎就在法国总统马克龙于3月17日宣布采取严厉封锁举措的同时,亚马逊员工便抱怨无法在仓库进行社交隔离,而且缺乏洗手液和口罩。这两类物品在法国都处于超级紧缺状态,直到最近才有所缓解,而且法国政府严格限制其销量。在3月,马克龙要求线上零售商继续营业,因为大多数实体店面在上周一法国取消封锁令之前都处于关闭状态。

亚马逊坚持认为,公司从一开始便实施了新冠病毒安全防范措施,而且远超政府的指导标准。这些举措包括保持6英尺的社交隔离距离,将法国官方规定的一米排队间隔变成了两米,先于大多数其他公司为员工发放口罩。公司还在仓库检查员工的体温,并加强了仓库的清扫流程。

亚马逊在巴黎的发言人朱莉·瓦雷特说:“我们采取了异常严格的举措来保障员工的安全。”她指出,与其他所有公司一样,当疫情来临时,“我们没有任何指导手册可供参考。”

恩加尔兰说,法国有6700万人口,很多人都在网上购买各种物品,从电话充电器、书籍一直到洗发水,因此亚马逊也是忙得团团转,也导致仓库的工作节奏变得异常紧张。他说,即便亚马逊提升了安全举措,但员工们依然面临着很大的新冠病毒感染风险。“每一天都有仓库称又有一名员工因为感染病毒而生病。”

由于可能感觉到自身在这个历史性时刻所扮演的重要角色,亚马逊员工起诉亚马逊,要求公司提供更加安全的工作环境。4月14日,一名法国法官做出了有利于员工的裁决,下令公司仅能够配送必需品,否则将面临每天100万欧元(约合187万美元)的罚款。

不过亚马逊并没有想方设法去弄清楚客户所购物品是否属于必需品,而是暂停了配送服务,所以到如今依然处于停滞状态。瓦雷特说:“这完全没有可操作性。什么才算是必需品?梳子算吗?避孕套呢?”

亚马逊在4月底对上述裁决进行了上诉,但再次以败诉告终,然而这一次,法官将罚金削减为每违反一次罚款10万欧元(约合10.87万美元),并列出了允许亚马逊配送的物品清单。即便如此,公司估计,哪怕是一个小小的错误每周也会给公司带来约10亿欧元的成本。亚马逊在去年成为了法国最大的线上零售商。

恩加尔兰承认,在某些方面,亚马逊还是不错的雇主。即便员工在家休息,公司也会支付100%的薪资。

然而,令他感到震惊的是,他在上周发现,亚马逊已向法国政府申请员工薪资成本补贴,相当于在法国执行美国的工资保护计划。

由于今年面临6%的GDP下跌,法国政府官员拒绝了这一申请,称这些条款并不适用亚马逊困难员工的情形。政府还预测,给亚马逊贷款可能会激起法国民众的公愤,而恩加尔兰曾简明扼要地描述过这种愤怒。他在谈论亚马逊寻求政府帮助时说:“真不敢相信亚马逊会这样做。就像我一直说的那样,亚马逊真不知道何为羞耻。”

在看似无路可选的情况下,亚马逊于上周上诉至法国最高院,要求取消不利于公司的上述裁决,并认为自己已经实施了影响深远的安全举措。

我们尚不清楚亚马逊最终是否能胜诉,而且最高院要到数周后才可以给出答案。

然而恩加尔兰称,该公司员工在其中一个方面已经胜诉,即工会代表参与决定制定亚马逊新冠疫情防范策略的要求。亚马逊称,这一诉求目前已经得到满足。瓦雷特说:“我们已经开始与[工会]工作理事会协商,并希望在这一流程中得到其持续、积极的反馈。”

对于西雅图亚马逊总部来说,与法国工人交锋的最终影响要远比在法国重开其六个物流中心深远。这一结果可能会引发数以万计的员工在包括美国本土在内的其他地区采取类似举措。亚马逊在疫情期间开除美国工会积极分子的举措已成为法国家喻户晓的事件,而法国员工也据此提出了相应的要求,只不过法国的劳工保护力度要大得多。亚马逊副总裁蒂姆·布雷在本月早些时候递交了辞呈,称公司在开除积极分子方面“畏首畏尾”。

恩加尔兰称,他和其他工会积极分子曾密切关注过布雷的行动。

他解释说:“我们所做的一切并不仅仅是为了亚马逊和法国员工,我们与美国员工进行了沟通,而且也为意大利、德国和英国的亚马逊员工提供了建议。”

这也让亚马逊更有理由去努力解决法国的这场斗争。(财富中文网)

译者:Feb

如果你想在失业率不断攀升、经济深陷低迷之时与一家万亿美元的公司一较高下,那么不妨考虑一下法国,这个国家被称为工人的天堂。

上个月,亚马逊在法国的官司便明确地佐证了这一点。在该案中,两名法官做出了有利于近1万名亚马逊员工的裁决,并告诉亚马逊未能在疫情期间给予其员工适当的防护。美国亚马逊员工也提出了类似的控诉,称新冠疫情危机让他们非常容易受到这种致命疾病的侵袭。

法国的这场斗争让亚马逊在这个全球第六大经济体中的在线业务瘫痪了四周的时间,而正是在这个期间,亚马逊的销量在这个闭关锁国、充斥着新冠疫情的星球如日中天。亚马逊的股票今年上涨了近30%。

如今,亚马逊正在尝试重新开启其法国的六个物流中心,顺利的话可能这周就会营业,但工会却说:不会这么快。

团结工会法国书记史蒂芬·恩加尔兰说:“我们会向亚马逊提供一个非常详细的安全计划,如果亚马逊不同意,那么重新营业就会遇到很大的阻力。”该工会上月起诉法国亚马逊,由于物流中心内部环境存在风险,从而导致工会会员存在感染新冠病毒的隐患。

恩加尔兰说:“我们可以上法院起诉他们。”

恩加尔兰指出,自法国出现新冠疫情以来,十几名亚马逊员工已经感染新冠病毒,其中有一名症状十分严重,已住进位于巴黎南部的一家医院。

几乎就在法国总统马克龙于3月17日宣布采取严厉封锁举措的同时,亚马逊员工便抱怨无法在仓库进行社交隔离,而且缺乏洗手液和口罩。这两类物品在法国都处于超级紧缺状态,直到最近才有所缓解,而且法国政府严格限制其销量。在3月,马克龙要求线上零售商继续营业,因为大多数实体店面在上周一法国取消封锁令之前都处于关闭状态。

亚马逊坚持认为,公司从一开始便实施了新冠病毒安全防范措施,而且远超政府的指导标准。这些举措包括保持6英尺的社交隔离距离,将法国官方规定的一米排队间隔变成了两米,先于大多数其他公司为员工发放口罩。公司还在仓库检查员工的体温,并加强了仓库的清扫流程。

亚马逊在巴黎的发言人朱莉·瓦雷特说:“我们采取了异常严格的举措来保障员工的安全。”她指出,与其他所有公司一样,当疫情来临时,“我们没有任何指导手册可供参考。”

恩加尔兰说,法国有6700万人口,很多人都在网上购买各种物品,从电话充电器、书籍一直到洗发水,因此亚马逊也是忙得团团转,也导致仓库的工作节奏变得异常紧张。他说,即便亚马逊提升了安全举措,但员工们依然面临着很大的新冠病毒感染风险。“每一天都有仓库称又有一名员工因为感染病毒而生病。”

由于可能感觉到自身在这个历史性时刻所扮演的重要角色,亚马逊员工起诉亚马逊,要求公司提供更加安全的工作环境。4月14日,一名法国法官做出了有利于员工的裁决,下令公司仅能够配送必需品,否则将面临每天100万欧元(约合187万美元)的罚款。

不过亚马逊并没有想方设法去弄清楚客户所购物品是否属于必需品,而是暂停了配送服务,所以到如今依然处于停滞状态。瓦雷特说:“这完全没有可操作性。什么才算是必需品?梳子算吗?避孕套呢?”

亚马逊在4月底对上述裁决进行了上诉,但再次以败诉告终,然而这一次,法官将罚金削减为每违反一次罚款10万欧元(约合10.87万美元),并列出了允许亚马逊配送的物品清单。即便如此,公司估计,哪怕是一个小小的错误每周也会给公司带来约10亿欧元的成本。亚马逊在去年成为了法国最大的线上零售商。

恩加尔兰承认,在某些方面,亚马逊还是不错的雇主。即便员工在家休息,公司也会支付100%的薪资。

然而,令他感到震惊的是,他在上周发现,亚马逊已向法国政府申请员工薪资成本补贴,相当于在法国执行美国的工资保护计划。

由于今年面临6%的GDP下跌,法国政府官员拒绝了这一申请,称这些条款并不适用亚马逊困难员工的情形。政府还预测,给亚马逊贷款可能会激起法国民众的公愤,而恩加尔兰曾简明扼要地描述过这种愤怒。他在谈论亚马逊寻求政府帮助时说:“真不敢相信亚马逊会这样做。就像我一直说的那样,亚马逊真不知道何为羞耻。”

在看似无路可选的情况下,亚马逊于上周上诉至法国最高院,要求取消不利于公司的上述裁决,并认为自己已经实施了影响深远的安全举措。

我们尚不清楚亚马逊最终是否能胜诉,而且最高院要到数周后才可以给出答案。

然而恩加尔兰称,该公司员工在其中一个方面已经胜诉,即工会代表参与决定制定亚马逊新冠疫情防范策略的要求。亚马逊称,这一诉求目前已经得到满足。瓦雷特说:“我们已经开始与[工会]工作理事会协商,并希望在这一流程中得到其持续、积极的反馈。”

对于西雅图亚马逊总部来说,与法国工人交锋的最终影响要远比在法国重开其六个物流中心深远。这一结果可能会引发数以万计的员工在包括美国本土在内的其他地区采取类似举措。亚马逊在疫情期间开除美国工会积极分子的举措已成为法国家喻户晓的事件,而法国员工也据此提出了相应的要求,只不过法国的劳工保护力度要大得多。亚马逊副总裁蒂姆·布雷在本月早些时候递交了辞呈,称公司在开除积极分子方面“畏首畏尾”。

恩加尔兰称,他和其他工会积极分子曾密切关注过布雷的行动。

他解释说:“我们所做的一切并不仅仅是为了亚马逊和法国员工,我们与美国员工进行了沟通,而且也为意大利、德国和英国的亚马逊员工提供了建议。”

这也让亚马逊更有理由去努力解决法国的这场斗争。(财富中文网)

译者:Feb

If you want to take on a trillion-dollar company in the midst of rising unemployment and a deep economic slump, it helps to live in worker-friendly France.

That’s clear from Amazon’s French troubles this past month as two judges have ruled in favor of nearly 10,000 workers, telling the company that it failed to properly protect them from the coronavirus—echoing accusations from Amazon workers in the U.S. that the COVID-19 crisis has left them vulnerable to a deadly disease.

The battle in France has ground Amazon’s online ordering business in the world’s sixth biggest economy to a halt for four weeks—at the very time when its sales have rocketed across the locked-down, COVID-19 planet. Amazon stock is up nearly 30% this year.

Now, as Amazon tries to reopen its six fulfillment centers in France, perhaps as soon as this week, the labor unions are saying: not so fast.

“We have a really precise security plan to propose to Amazon, and if Amazon does not agree it could be very uneasy for them to open,” says Stéphane Enjalran, national secretary for the Solidaire Union, which sued Amazon France last month claiming that its members were at risk of being infected with COVID-19 because of risky conditions inside its fulfillment centers.

“We can go to court and denounce them,” Enjalran says.

Enjalran says “dozens” of Amazon workers have fallen ill with COVID-19 since the virus hit France, with one still in serious condition in a hospital south of Paris.

Almost as soon as President Emmanuel Macron declared a severe nationwide lockdown on March 17, Amazon workers complained of being unable to social distance in warehouses and about the lack of hand sanitizer and facial masks. Both items were in dire short supply across France until recently, and the government strictly restricted their sale. Back in March, Macron had instructed online retailers to remain open since almost all stores were shut until France’s lockdown ended on last Monday.

Amazon insists that from the start it implemented COVID-19 safety measures that went far beyond the government’s guidelines. Those included social distancing of six feet, double the official one-meter rule, and issuing workers masks before most other companies. They also checked workers’ temperatures in warehouses and intensified cleaning procedures in the warehouses.

“We have put extreme measures in place to keep our people safe,” Julie Valette, Amazon spokesperson in Paris, says. Like all companies everywhere, she says, when COVID-19 hit, “there was no playbook.”

With many in the country of 67 million ordering everything from phone chargers to books to shampoo online, the company was going gangbusters, and the pace inside the warehouses hugely increased, according to Enjalran. Even Amazon’s stepped-up safety measures left workers facing big risks of infection, he says. “Each warehouse day after day was saying there was another colleague sick with COVID.”

Perhaps sensing their crucial role at a historic moment, Amazon workers sued for safer working conditions, and on April 14, a French judge ruled in their favor, ordering the company to deliver only essential items or risk being fined €1 million (about $1.87 million) a day.

Rather than having to figure out the necessity of each item ordered, Amazon instead halted its deliveries, and they remain at a standstill today. “It was absolutely not operational,” says Valette. “What was an essential product? Is a hairbrush essential? Is a condom essential?”

Amazon appealed the judge’s decision in late April and lost again, although this time, the judge cut the penalties to €100,000 (about $108,700) per violation and listed the items Amazon was permitted to ship. Even so, the company estimated that even tiny errors could cost it about €1 billion a week. Amazon last year became France’s biggest online retailer.

Enjalran concedes that in some ways, Amazon is a good employer. It is paying its French workers 100% of their salaries, despite the fact that they are idling at home.

Yet he was shocked to discover last week that Amazon had applied to the French government to cover its payroll costs, the country’s equivalent of the U.S.'s Payroll Protection Program.

Facing a 6% drop in GDP this year, French officials declined, saying that the provisions did not cover a situation like Amazon’s labor woes. The government also predicted the likely outrage that a loan to Amazon could ignite among the French—anger that Enjalran neatly summed up. “It was unbelievable,” he says of Amazon’s request for government help. “As I always say, Amazon does not know the meaning of the word shame.”

Seemingly out of options, the company appealed to the French Supreme Court last week to annul the ruling against it, arguing that it has instituted far-reaching safety measures.

It is unclear whether Amazon might finally prevail, and it could take weeks before the Supreme Court rules.

But Enjalran says workers have already won their case in one respect: their demand that union reps participate in determining Amazon’s COVID-19 strategy. That is now happening, according to Amazon. “We have started to consult with [labor] works councils and are calling for their progressive and positive input through this process,” Valette says.

For Amazon HQ, back in Seattle, its tussle with French workers has far wider consequences than reopening its six warehouses in the country. The outcome could inspire similar actions elsewhere among hundreds of thousands of workers—including in the U.S. The firing of American union activists during the pandemic has been widely publicized in France, as a mirror of what French workers have demanded—albeit in a country with far stronger labor protections. Amazon Vice President Tim Bray quit earlier this month, saying that the company had been “chickenshit” for firing the activists.

Enjalran says he and other union activists had closely followed Bray’s action.

“What we are doing was not only for Amazon and not only for French workers,” he explains. “We are connected to workers in the U.S. We are giving advice to Italian, German, British workers at Amazon.”

All the more reason for Amazon to fight to resolve its battle in France.

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