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Amazon threatens to suspend French deliveries after court order

217 points by yamrzou 7y ago

Nightshaxx 7y ago
Who is to say what's essential?? You've basically locked everyone in their homes, and now you are even trying to deny them delivery of goods they may need. Even things purely for recreation may help ease the tension and stress of lockdown and encourage people to do what the government wants them to do: stay inside. Name literally anything on the Amazon store, and I can come up with a reasonable senerio where someone could legitimately need it. P
- deleted 7y ago
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- ooobit2 7y ago
  OK. https://www.amazon.com/LubeLife-Personal-Lubricant-Lube-Parabens/dp/B07FMGNV51/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=barrel+of+lube+for+sex&qid=1586959083&sprefix=barrel+of+lube&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/LubeLife-Personal-Lubricant-Lube-Para...
- josefx 7y ago
  > Who is to say what's essential? In this case the choice is made by the court since amazon failed to ensure safe distancing while operating its warehouses at full capacity[1] > You've basically locked everyone in their homes, and now you are even trying to deny them delivery of goods they may need. People can still buy most non essentials from companies that manage to comply with the current regulations instead of flaunting them. [1]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-amazon-france/amazon-ordered-to-limit-france-trade-to-essential-goods-within-24-hours-idUSKCN21W1S6?il=0&utm_source=reddit.com https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-amazon...
asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
Doesn't seem like a threat? More of a recognition of the necessary consequences of this particular order. If the court says to stop doing some things, and the wheels are too big to be changed while in flight, then Amazon should shut down for the time it takes to figure out how to comply. That's just obeying the court, right?
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  Well that's true. A court order is a court order. Obviously you shut down. I don't think any reasonable people have an issue with that. What I'd like to understand more is what are the steps sufficient with guaranteeing, (or, I guess, better protecting), health? I can't really make out what is not being done that needs to be done vs what is being done that shouldn't be done vs etc etc etc.
- ajross 7y ago
  Of course it's a "threat". Amazon doesn't want to shut down in France, they just want not to be subject to this court order. France doesn't want Amazon to shut down in France, they just want them to honor this court order. The only reason you announce a policy that no one wants is as a negotiating tactic. "Honor my desires or else the outcome will be worse for both of us" is, logically, what "threat" means. Now, no, Amazon can't possibly do what the order asks in 24 hours. But they certainly could make a good faith attempt. I made this point yesterday, but I remain amazed at the extent to which Amazon let itself be painted the "bad guy" in all of this, simply by not being willing to negotiate with their workers on an equal basis. A world where Amazon had a healthy relationship with its unions isn't one where everyone comes at them with a knife during a crisis trying to protect their workers.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    If France wants compliance, they have a duty to produce an order that's possible to comply with. It seems legitimate for a company to not want to be subject to an impossible order.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      If you have a legitimate demand for something that is impossible, it still won't happen.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
    > But they certainly could make a good faith attempt. In my understanding, court orders are not a polite requests. They are demands, with the force of law standing behind them. You don't make good faith attempts to comply with them. You comply, or risk severe consequences (in this case, 1M euro/day). If Amazon can't comply in the time frame allowed, shutting down is probably the right call both for their business and from a public morals perspective.
hartator 7y ago
Interesting that way more effort is put into repression and regulations than actually working on providing a better healthcare system.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  ...France seems to have a pretty decent healthcare system by most accounts?
  - harryf 7y ago
    COVID-19 gives us a good opportunity to compare healthcare systems more directly. Just looking at the absolute number of cases https://i.imgur.com/iiRulFy.png https://i.imgur.com/iiRulFy.png as a proportion of population; US: 610K cases, population 328 million: 19% infected France: 104K, population 70 million: 15% infected ... France is doing slightly better which may reflect how well they've handled the pandemic. Of course many factors come into play here, not just the healthcare system. A better metric is probably ICU load and we'll be able to analyse this stuff in detail once we have enough data... Source of graph: https://qap.ecdc.europa.eu/public/extensions/COVID-19/COVID-19.html https://qap.ecdc.europa.eu/public/extensions/COVID-19/COVID-...
    - js8 7y ago
      I suspect lot of states in the Eurozone have failed to act soon enough because they cannot print their own money to handle the economic shutdown fiscally, so they waited till the last moment to some signal from the ECB, which never came. In the U.S., there was a similar deal but on the state vs federal level.
    - narag 7y ago
      The number of cases is just a fantasy in most countries. The death toll is also fake, but it's more difficult to manipulate, so it's a better metric. Just notice that it's strange that the same bug causes very different rates cases/deaths in different places. The best metric is comparing the average of deaths in same dates past year to total deaths now and dividing per million of inhabitants.
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Its a business. When a court ignores the actual real world and says imaginary things, unintended consequences are assured. Business doesn't work like whatever world is inside French intellectuals' heads.
- deleted 7y ago
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- tasogare 7y ago
  A business has social responsibility, in this case protect its workers. The part of those who are sendings non food, non health related item are indeed better at home. Where I live huge chains of karaoke, shops, restaurant, and smaller restaurants too have closed by themselves without any government or court order in order to protect the people.
  - matz1 7y ago
    The non food, non health related item could be for those people who produce food and provide health related service. You stop those you hurt them too.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  A business is supposed to be responsible to avoid hiring people into hazards they didn’t sign up for when they were hired, but now cannot leave for risk of being jobless in the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    The issue is, should they regulate the particular behavior of a corporation, by dictating their business practices? No. Other things they could have done: Rule that businesses have to protect their employees in certain ways (masks, sanitization etc) Rule that employees density must be reduced (fewer per building etc) Rule that testing should be done to detect issues quickly Instead, they decided to make lists of what should be shipped. Which backfired, since Amazon can't keep the doors open on a tiny list of products. And further, the list was wrong. Who says I don't need 6 yards of plastic sheeting, to separate my house into separate zones and reduce infection from quarantined individuals? What about small plastic bottles to dole out hand sanitizer to family members that are essential personnel not being supported by their institution? What about 100 products the French never thought of, that can help? It was a small-minded wrong-headed decision, just ripe for unintended consequences and disaster. Which they got. Those folks will be jobless soon, but now it's because of the French decision.
tumetab1 7y ago
This is weird... > Amazon “evidently failed to comply with obligations to protect the health of employees,” judges said in their Tuesday ruling. That results in > a court order banned the sale of non-essential goods, concluding the retailer isn’t doing enough to protect staff from the Covid-19 pandemic. I think there's something missing from one reason (not good enough health practices according to the judge) to lead to ban non-essential goods sales. Can some fill in what's missing (with references) please?
- Softcadbury 7y ago
  Less sales leads to less activity and deliveries
  - BoorishBears 7y ago
    Realistically, it's they want to have their cake and eat it too. If Amazon is not taking precautions and putting the population at risk, they should be shut down. Amazon is already putting massive delays on non-essential goods (delivery times have moved from 2 days to up to 1 month) in order to prioritize moving essential goods. Not to mention, they've said they're hiring due to the massive influx of orders for essential goods. So logically speaking, if a large portion of their current activity is already essential goods, what is this besides a way to look like they're standing up to the big bad foreign tech company while getting to keep their deliveries flowing in (all without actually protecting anyone)
    - samcday 7y ago
      > So logically speaking, if a large portion of their current activity is already essential goods I think the point is many suspect that is not the case. https://thegrio.com/2020/04/01/amazon-worker-strike-covid-19-dildos/ https://thegrio.com/2020/04/01/amazon-worker-strike-covid-19...
      - BoorishBears 7y ago
        This is the first week since demand spiked due to COVID that 3rd party sellers are even allowed to sell non-essential goods on Amazon, and they make up over 50% of sales: https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-seeks-to-hire-another-75-000-workers-11586789365 https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-seeks-to-hire-another-75... It’s true Amazon is still selling non-essential goods, and I understand why the man is frustrated, but it’s very clear even with just “essential goods” being sold, Amazon will still require a large part of their current machinery. When you’re talking about an organization as large as Amazon Fulfillment, and a virus as infectious as COVID, these half-measures definitely come across as more for optics than actually stopping the spread.
twodave 7y ago
Is this really the time? I feel like whatever errors Amazon have made with regard to protecting its employees have largely been realized in France by now, and I have serious doubts in the efficiency of forcing a closure having a near-to-intermediate term impact. More likely this is just going to put fulfillment further behind and halt progress in order to protect people who would already have gotten the virus by now. At some point it’s just more prudent to recognize that the birds have flown and your opportunity to fix the problems isn’t in the next 24 hours but in the next year or years.
- FriendlyNormie 7y ago
  No one could possibly sincerely think this measure would protect anyone. The point of this measure and many similar measures we’ve been seeing is not to protect people but rather to remove more and more perks of society and then eventually only allow an individual to access those perks again if they agree to receive Bill Gates’ subdermal personal identification microchip.
- bluntfang 7y ago
  >I feel like whatever errors Amazon have made with regard to protecting its employees have largely been realized in France by now I guess I'm going to have to believe the people actually intimately involved in this, like the courts, instead of an armchair analyst on hacker news.
  - Noos 7y ago
    Th EU in general has shown a willingness to use the courts to punish or fleece American companies. I wouldn't trust them at all.
    - bluntfang 7y ago
      Those poor companies. They definitely deserve some sympathy along with their billions in profits and their employees definitely don't deserve safe working conditions.
js4ever 7y ago
French government completely failed handling of wuhan virus, a lot of french peoples are asking for an official resign of the president and health ministry ... So I guess they are just trying to put the blame of someone else ... Like Amazon
- speedgoose 7y ago
  Are you sure ? Macron's popularity is going up and 96% of the French population approves the containment. https://www.marianne.net/politique/popularite-de-macron-une-hausse-mecanique-et-sans-lendemain https://www.marianne.net/politique/popularite-de-macron-une-... https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/coronavirus-96-des-francais-approuvent-les-mesures-de-confinement-annoncees-par-macron-20200319 https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/coronavirus-96-des-francai...
- js4ever 7y ago
  Wow so many downvotes? Is that forbidden to expose an opinion here?
  - pjc50 7y ago
    - use of "wuhan virus" - unsupported claim about Macron unpopularity; he certainly was unpopular, to the point of riots, but the coronavirus response seems to have improved his popularity.
    - js4ever 7y ago
      What's wrong with wuhan virus? Its a virus, it's started in wuhan .... Like spanish flu ... Is it forbidden to name it with a link to china? Also here is a link supporting my claim: https://www.ladepeche.fr/amp/2020/03/25/gestion-de-la-crise-sanitaire-au-moins-cinq-plaintes-deposees-contre-le-gouvernement,8818460.php https://www.ladepeche.fr/amp/2020/03/25/gestion-de-la-crise-...
      - pjc50 7y ago
        Spanish flu, surprisingly, did not start in Spain. What is the purpose of linking it to China? Anyway, how do you know about Macron's popularity?
harryf 7y ago
The other side of the story... https://www.france24.com/en/20200414-french-court-faults-amazon-over-virus-safety-limits-deliveries https://www.france24.com/en/20200414-french-court-faults-ama... or https://www.ft.com/content/1ad863ef-dc39-43a3-b714-e5ef3c4a8e15 https://www.ft.com/content/1ad863ef-dc39-43a3-b714-e5ef3c4a8... > Laurent Degousee, of the SUD-Commerce union that was behind the complaint, acknowledged that Amazon had "not stood idly by" amid the crisis but had taken a "slew of measures without any evaluation". > He said that the taking of temperatures had sometimes caused queues and thus risked possible infection. So Amazon had the choice of either; a) taking the court ruling seriously and doubling down on efforts to ensure worker safety and working out what needs to be done to lift the suspension or b) raising a middle finger and threatening to suspend all deliveries, thereby adding fuel to the notion that Amazon doesn't take worker safety seriously and creating opposition in France that will now work on strategies for "what to do if Amazon pulls out of our market?" Which one seems like a smarter response?
- onli 7y ago
  To be fair, if the deadline is short and if it's indeed unclear which activity Amazon is allowed to do now, taking a moment to figure that out is not that bad of an idea.
  - mirekrusin 7y ago
    Yeah, 24h, sometimes I'm waiting for simple email reply longer, bit tight.
  - bluntfang 7y ago
    >taking a moment to figure that out is not that bad of an idea. This is a tax. The whole point is that they should've been doing this from the start. They've had 4 months of moments to figure out how to keep their workers safe, and the fact that they have union busting history makes this all worse.
    - syshum 7y ago
      The best way to keep the workers safe, is to send them home Now people complain that they are sending them home Amazon is just todays "big evil corporation" and nothing they do will be "correct"
frenchman99 7y ago
They don't threaten, they obey the court that asked them to suspend deliveries because employees were not properly cared for. Let's not turn things around. Don't worry, if Amazon stops selling altogether, small businesses will be more than happy to take back some market share.
- elcomet 7y ago
  Except that they won't be able to meet demands, especially for important products such as medical or safety products.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    Then Amazon may need a carve-out in best practices to supply essential services, which is what every nation has had to do in this highly-dynamic crisis.
    - true_religion 7y ago
      Did you mean to say company? Because Amazon isn’t a nation, they simply comply with the best practices set out by the governments they operate under. In this case the French government gave an order, which they need more than 24 hours to comply with, so they are temporarily shutting down in order to understand the law and make changes.
      - deleted 7y ago
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      - jshevek 7y ago
        Carve out can mean spin off, but it can also mean exception, including an exception to a law that lets a company operate. That's how I interpreted the parent.
      - 7y ago
Zenbit_UX 7y ago
As much as Amazon deserves some bad publicity for how they handle their warehouse and wholefoods workers in the US, in this case I feel like they're being vilified unfairly for the shipping of non-essentials. Walmart is shipping whatever-the-fuck, I can order nightstands and a bed on wayfair and weed from the SQDC (government)... Let's be clear, marijuana is not an essential for all but a very small percentage of the population using it as medecine... Yet everyone's roasting Amazon for operating like it's business as usual while the smaller players run wild.
- onli 7y ago
  Shipping non-essential items is not the problem here. They can ship whatever they want, but while doing so have to protect their workers. Amazon is infamous for creating horrible working conditions in their shipping centers, it's not a surprise that how they react to the virus is observed very closely. Especially in a country like France that already has a critical stance towards big US companies.
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  - malandrew 7y ago
    > Amazon is infamous for creating horrible working conditions in their shipping centers Has anyone actually done a fair comparison of Amazon warehouse working conditions with those of other warehouses? Other than the presence of robots to help our their workers, nothing I've seen and read about strikes me as being out of line with any other warehouse. Or are they just the ones getting the flack because they are the largest and most visible?
    - negrit 7y ago
      It's not a race to the bottom.
      - krapp 7y ago
stevespang 7y ago
Bezos raises the middle finger and just shuts all distribution centers down, touche !
samcday 7y ago
I can only see it like this. Amazon share price and business activity is surging as a direct result of Covid-19. They need to hire 100,000+ workers to meet the demand. However, the same thing they are profiting from (Covid-19) should also increase many of their operating expenses. Things like healthcare, paid sick leave adequate for the situation (so at least 4 weeks for proper quarantine), good PPE, in-depth infection combat strategies, and so on. The problem is those operating expenses are only obvious if you have ethics/morality/whatever that concludes individual human life is more valuable than money. So if you're a big corporation that has been designed to enrich shareholders and the space company fantasies of your ego-maniacal CEO, you fight as hard as possible against taking on those operating expenses.
- matz1 7y ago
  They do have moral, it might not be the same as yours, they moral could be to make money. Moral is subjective.
  - cmendel 7y ago
    Businesses are intrinsically amoral. While humans may have different moral goods, companies only have to make money and, as such, need not concern themselves with petty human morality.
    - matz1 7y ago
      Business are made of group of people, people have moral. Business morality is based on its people. Making money itself is a moral.
- hedora 7y ago
  > Things like healthcare, paid sick leave adequate for the situation (so at least 4 weeks for proper quarantine), good PPE, in-depth infection combat strategies, and so on. They are already doing all the things you suggested: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employee-benefits-2017-8?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employee-benefits-201... https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazons-actions-to-help-employees-communities-and-customers-affected-by-covid-19 https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazons-actions-to...
lacker 7y ago
I’m glad that this is not happening in my country. Banning Amazon from selling nonessential items seems detrimental to society. The “nonessential items” that Amazon sells are still pretty important for living my life. I’m sure there are some ways that worker health could be protected better, but at this point I wouldn’t trust the French government to make intelligent judgments on behalf of public health.
- Darkstryder 7y ago
  As most democratic countries, France has a complete separation between the government and the justice system. This is a justice decision. The government has nothing to do with it.
  - ensignavenger 7y ago
    Not sure where the above poster is from, but some parts of the world use a different definition for "government" than other parts of the world. In the USA, for example, all three separate branches of "government" (Legislature, Executive, and Judicial) are considered "the government".
    - Darkstryder 7y ago
      I'm French. In french "gouvernement" (french word for "government") only refers to the executive branch, and our justice system is strongly attached to its independence from the two other branches. So it seems strange to me to conflate all three branches together. Interestingly, in the French wikipedia page for "gouvernement" [1], there is this paragraph : Différence avec le terme anglais En anglais, le mot « government » s'applique non seulement au gouvernement au sens où on l'entend en français, mais aussi aux collectivités territoriales et aux administrations publiques, aussi bien centrales que locales. Le concept le plus proche en français est donc celui de collectivité publique, qui englobe les institutions politiques qui incarnent directement les pouvoirs législatif, exécutif et judiciaire, ainsi que l'ensemble des administrations qui leur sont rattachées. Which can be loosely translated as : Difference with the english term In English, the word "government" includes not only the executive governement like in French, but also all local and global public administrations. The closest concept in french is therefore "collectivité publique" which encompasses institutions for all Legislative, Executive, Judiciary powers, as well as all administrations under their authorities. I learnt something new today. [1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouvernement https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouvernement
soufron 7y ago
Well, what do they "threaten" about? They were ORDERED to stop deliveries :D
- Traster 7y ago
  They were ordered to stop delivering golf clubs and in response are threatening not to deliver personal protective equipment.
  - hedora 7y ago
    Did the court order include an “essential” / “not essential” categorization of the ~ 44 million items in Amazon’s catalog? They say they’ll take 7 days to comply with the court order. That means they have to accurately categorize 6 million catalog items each day. Even if they had the perfect list the court is requiring, they still need to somehow stop inflows of non-essential items from overfilling their warehouses. The court has ordered them not to clear the warehouse space by simply selling them, as they normally would. Instead, they have to establish some new process (ship the items back?) while deliberately lowering the staffing levels of their warehouses and distribution centers. They already did a rough first pass of all of these things, and have been incrementally improving. This court ruling specifically rejected their current course of action. There’s no way they’ll be able to do significantly better in a 24 hour window.
    - Traster 7y ago
      If you view it as them having to make a decision on 44 million items there is no time frame that you can make sound reasonable. Is categorizing 44 million in a day reasonable? I don't know. I personally wouldn't have thought categorizing 6 million was reasonable. But then again the fine is 2cents per item they stock per day, so it sounds pretty reaosnable.
papermachete 7y ago
Amazon has more to lose than France.
- frockington1 7y ago
  Unfortunately the French courts don't seem to understand this. The only people meaningfully hurt by this will be French citizens employed by Amazon
  - kyboren 7y ago
    That's not true. People relying on deliveries from Amazon's French logistics network will also be meaningfully hurt by this.
  - bhelkey 7y ago
    The article mentions, > "informed employees at the six French fulfillment centers that they’ll be on a partial unemployment program with full pay." As another poster mentions, I see this as a loss to the French consumer at a time when eCommerce is already strained.
  - user5994461 7y ago
    Employees will get 80% pay for staying home. Standard unemployment packages for all those laid off because of the virus, announced a few weeks ago nationwide.
- dingo_bat 7y ago
  That does not mean Amazon should just give in to dictatorial governments.
BiteCode_dev 7y ago
As a french, I'm ok if amazon suspends deliveries. We have plenty of other websites to order from: fnac, darty, ruducommerce, cdiscount, etc. This is going to be good for the french economy, and a good message to american giants that they are not above the law.
- malandrew 7y ago
  And all those other websites should have to comply with the exact same restrictions or shut down. The law should not be applied unequally to just one company.
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  - frockington1 7y ago
    Europe is desperately trying to feed domestic growth. I'm not trying to justify their actions, but I think it might explain some of the lopsided laws
    - brynjolf 7y ago
      Or rather we don't agree with the notion that companies stand above the laws of a country. The USA has insane bias towards companies to the extent they get better benefit as people and even qualify as people.
      - dwaite 7y ago
        Obviously $1mil per infraction is a bit lopsided when the definition of which products are infracting is not clearly spelled out. Likewise, coordinating a review and implementing all measures in a 24h period is obviously not feasible when that hasn't happened over the last month(s). This was phrased as a threat in the article title, but I don't see how Amazon had any choice until implementation of measures is either done or they have an answer to a court appeal. Likewise, there could be a case to be made that measures should already be implemented, but there is no documentation in the article over what progress there has already happened. Per this court order and event, I again don't see another response by them. My understanding per the article is that this is not about applying a uniform set of safety standards, so there is no legal template we as outsiders can use - say, the safety standards implemented by their French competitors - to judge whether this order is or is not "fair". I also don't think it is my place to judge. Instead, Amazon has the right to determine whether or not they provide service within a country under that country's laws, and to raise awareness if _they_ feel the judicial system is giving illegal preferential treatment disguised in the context of crisis response. I don't see that as happening here either, though - at least not yet.
darksaints 7y ago
Not defending Amazon's petty childish antics when they deal with government, but "essential" has a relative meeting. What is essential to you, may not be essential to me, and vice versa. Two small examples: My friend started a new remote job last week after about 6 months of unemployment...a feat that was amazing considering the fact that most companies are laying off. He was required to buy a laptop, which was to be reimbursed. He had extensive difficulty buying a laptop that met the required specs because most computer stores are considered non-essential, and amazon had delivery times that were too long. The other was in Target. I saw someone buying a ton of furniture, while crying. I asked if they were okay, and they responded that their house burned down a month ago, and they had been staying in a hotel while insurance was processing everything, but their hotel time limit had passed and they were forced to move into an empty apartment because their furniture company shut down operations due to being non-essential. She had spent the night on a bare hardwood floor with her husband and toddler.
A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
What else can they do? They either comply with the law or stop delivering to avoid non-compliance and enforcement. Do not get me wrong. It is big news, but if Amazon gives up on EU front, American workers will demand the same treatment. /s We can't have that. /s
mschuster91 7y ago
It's time for anti-trust regulation to step up. Companies that can essentially extort a nation state and its independent justice system simply due to their size and market power have grown too big and should be split up. The behavior that Amazon has shown regarding covid19 in the past few weeks, including firing union activists, should under normal circumstances warrant jail time.
mrsisterfister 7y ago
The French - ALL French- are lazy cunts and faggots - that’s the problem here - not Amazon
mrsisterfister 7y ago
The real issue here is simply that the French - ALL French - are thee (notice I said thee) laziest bunch of crybabies I have ever seen. I hope that amazon slow rolls the country to a clamorous outburst.
throwaway284629 7y ago
France should call this bluff. Amazon is trying to push around a democratically enacted law. They are not above the law. If Amazon was suspended in France a domestic competitor would rise up in a year or two, and Amazon would never regain the market. They would not dare suspending services, this is just a disgusting stunt
- koheripbal 7y ago
  France is not geared up for spawning an Amazon competitor. Aside from one year being waaay too late given the current crisis.
  - user5994461 7y ago
    There are many online shops that provide the same as Amazon: Cdiscount, rueducommerce, darty, fnac, etc... That's for non food items. For food, all the major supermarkets have been offering delivery for the major part of the decade, long before amazon.
erowtom 7y ago
It's now official, Amazon suspended all delivery services in France for 5 days, starting tonight. (In French: https://www.bfmtv.com/sante/direct-coronavirus-covid-19-france-confinement-deconfinement-reouverture-ecole-obligatoire-attestation-aide-exceptionnelle-masque-mort/?liveanchor=9850ccf14f8f153787dbaa49f87f93be#9850ccf14f8f153787dbaa49f87f93be https://www.bfmtv.com/sante/direct-coronavirus-covid-19-fran...)
mcguire 7y ago
Ultimatums are dangerous. If Amazon follows through with theirs, they are gambling that they are too important to lose. That seems like it would be a poor bet; they may lose their EU market.
- dwaite 7y ago
  They were given an order they couldn't achieve compliance for, which fined them 1mil per infraction against rules that were too broad to implement. I fail to see a response other than - stay operating against the order of the court, or close until they can be in compliance with the court.
  - mcguire 7y ago
    The unions' complaints date from before when the lawsuit was filed. In March. "“While the prime minister last March ordered the closure of non-essential businesses and activities bringing together more than 100 people simultaneously, due to the coronavirus epidemic, Amazon continues its activity as if nothing had happened,” a union spokesperson said alongside the lawsuit. “Despite not only the mobilisation of staff and formal notices from unions, inspection and occupational health, but also criticism from the ministers of economy and labour.”" The ruling called for Amazon to limit orders to a rather specific group of items; I have not heard that other companies in France have had problems understanding. (Although I understand some stores in my state had to be told that "no, even if what you sell is considered essential in another state, you still have to obey this state's order.") And the ruling has been suspended pending appeal. "The ruling, which has already been suspended pending appeal, required the company to only accept orders for groceries, toiletries and medical products as part of the wider lockdown imposed in France....Amazon immediately appealed against the ruling, securing a suspension of the requirements until conclusion of the appeal." Amazon didn't seem to have problems when the limitation was its own idea, at least temporarily. "Amazon temporarily, in late March, stopped taking orders for some non-essential products in France and Italy, in a move to implement social distancing guidelines at the company’s dispatch centres in those countries. Now the company says it is “prioritising” essential products in those countries, but non-essentials continue to be available." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/amazon-sales-non-essentials-french-court-ruling-union https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/amazon-sales-n... But all that aside, no country likes to be dictated to by a foreign company, and I rather suspect Amazon has less power in France than, say, the United Fruit Company in 20th century Nicaragua. Amazon is gambling that French consumers value its services enough that they will oppose the likely long-term response from the French government. I personally wouldn't take that bet.
chriselles 7y ago
Some possibly relevant context, or just interesting anecdotes of Amazon in Europe: When Amazon.fr opened back in 1998/1999 in Orleans, there was industrial action on pretty much Day 1. It kind of fit the French stereotype of industrial action to a T. When Amazon.de opened a bit before Amazon.fr in Regensberg, there was an issue with Amazon's book database(at the time we were only selling books) where books banned in Germany(such as Hitler's Mein Kampf) were viewable and able to be purchased in Germany which caused a bit of a media stir at the time. Things were much simpler back then, in every way.
user5994461 7y ago
Translations from the Amazon twitter thread, that has more details. Top twitter comment from Amazon: Following the decision of the court on 14th April, we (Amazon Inc) have to temporarily suspend activity in our distribution centers. Decision from the court, in a screenshot few comments below: We order Amazon Inc to evaluate work-related risks inherent to the covid-19 pandemic, across all its warehouses and to put in place measures expected by article L4121-1 from labor laws (not sure what's in this article)... we order Amazon, until the above measures are put in place and within 24h of being notified of this decision, to restrict warehouse activity to reception of merchandises, preparation and shipping of food items, hygiene items and medical supplies, otherwise it will be subject to a fine of 1M EUR per day late and per infraction. https://twitter.com/AmazonNewsFR/status/1250481148209369088 https://twitter.com/AmazonNewsFR/status/1250481148209369088 https://twitter.com/BlaisePere/status/1250522103952158722/ph.. https://twitter.com/BlaisePere/status/1250522103952158722/ph....
LatteLazy 7y ago
Deceptive headline...
LatteLazy 7y ago
I don't know why so many people feel the need to attack Amazon. They seem to trigger people to a degree not found in many other companies...
stevespang 7y ago
Heh, just reported 4-17-20 that Bezos decides to call the French court's bluff. We'll just shut down all 6 of our distribution centers in France, take that arseholes.

217 points by yamrzou 7y ago

Who is to say what's essential?? You've basically locked everyone in their homes, and now you are even trying to deny them delivery of goods they may need. Even things purely for recreation may help ease the tension and stress of lockdown and encourage people to do what the government wants them to do: stay inside. Name literally anything on the Amazon store, and I can come up with a reasonable senerio where someone could legitimately need it. P

deleted 7y ago
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ooobit2 7y ago
OK. https://www.amazon.com/LubeLife-Personal-Lubricant-Lube-Parabens/dp/B07FMGNV51/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=barrel+of+lube+for+sex&qid=1586959083&sprefix=barrel+of+lube&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/LubeLife-Personal-Lubricant-Lube-Para...
josefx 7y ago
> Who is to say what's essential? In this case the choice is made by the court since amazon failed to ensure safe distancing while operating its warehouses at full capacity[1] > You've basically locked everyone in their homes, and now you are even trying to deny them delivery of goods they may need. People can still buy most non essentials from companies that manage to comply with the current regulations instead of flaunting them. [1]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-amazon-france/amazon-ordered-to-limit-france-trade-to-essential-goods-within-24-hours-idUSKCN21W1S6?il=0&utm_source=reddit.com https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-amazon...

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago

Doesn't seem like a threat? More of a recognition of the necessary consequences of this particular order. If the court says to stop doing some things, and the wheels are too big to be changed while in flight, then Amazon should shut down for the time it takes to figure out how to comply. That's just obeying the court, right?

bilbo0s 7y ago
Well that's true. A court order is a court order. Obviously you shut down. I don't think any reasonable people have an issue with that. What I'd like to understand more is what are the steps sufficient with guaranteeing, (or, I guess, better protecting), health? I can't really make out what is not being done that needs to be done vs what is being done that shouldn't be done vs etc etc etc.
ajross 7y ago
Of course it's a "threat". Amazon doesn't want to shut down in France, they just want not to be subject to this court order. France doesn't want Amazon to shut down in France, they just want them to honor this court order. The only reason you announce a policy that no one wants is as a negotiating tactic. "Honor my desires or else the outcome will be worse for both of us" is, logically, what "threat" means. Now, no, Amazon can't possibly do what the order asks in 24 hours. But they certainly could make a good faith attempt. I made this point yesterday, but I remain amazed at the extent to which Amazon let itself be painted the "bad guy" in all of this, simply by not being willing to negotiate with their workers on an equal basis. A world where Amazon had a healthy relationship with its unions isn't one where everyone comes at them with a knife during a crisis trying to protect their workers.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  If France wants compliance, they have a duty to produce an order that's possible to comply with. It seems legitimate for a company to not want to be subject to an impossible order.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    If you have a legitimate demand for something that is impossible, it still won't happen.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  > But they certainly could make a good faith attempt. In my understanding, court orders are not a polite requests. They are demands, with the force of law standing behind them. You don't make good faith attempts to comply with them. You comply, or risk severe consequences (in this case, 1M euro/day). If Amazon can't comply in the time frame allowed, shutting down is probably the right call both for their business and from a public morals perspective.

hartator 7y ago

Interesting that way more effort is put into repression and regulations than actually working on providing a better healthcare system.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago
...France seems to have a pretty decent healthcare system by most accounts?
- harryf 7y ago
  COVID-19 gives us a good opportunity to compare healthcare systems more directly. Just looking at the absolute number of cases https://i.imgur.com/iiRulFy.png https://i.imgur.com/iiRulFy.png as a proportion of population; US: 610K cases, population 328 million: 19% infected France: 104K, population 70 million: 15% infected ... France is doing slightly better which may reflect how well they've handled the pandemic. Of course many factors come into play here, not just the healthcare system. A better metric is probably ICU load and we'll be able to analyse this stuff in detail once we have enough data... Source of graph: https://qap.ecdc.europa.eu/public/extensions/COVID-19/COVID-19.html https://qap.ecdc.europa.eu/public/extensions/COVID-19/COVID-...
  - js8 7y ago
    I suspect lot of states in the Eurozone have failed to act soon enough because they cannot print their own money to handle the economic shutdown fiscally, so they waited till the last moment to some signal from the ECB, which never came. In the U.S., there was a similar deal but on the state vs federal level.
  - narag 7y ago
    The number of cases is just a fantasy in most countries. The death toll is also fake, but it's more difficult to manipulate, so it's a better metric. Just notice that it's strange that the same bug causes very different rates cases/deaths in different places. The best metric is comparing the average of deaths in same dates past year to total deaths now and dividing per million of inhabitants.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago

Its a business. When a court ignores the actual real world and says imaginary things, unintended consequences are assured. Business doesn't work like whatever world is inside French intellectuals' heads.

deleted 7y ago
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tasogare 7y ago
A business has social responsibility, in this case protect its workers. The part of those who are sendings non food, non health related item are indeed better at home. Where I live huge chains of karaoke, shops, restaurant, and smaller restaurants too have closed by themselves without any government or court order in order to protect the people.
- matz1 7y ago
  The non food, non health related item could be for those people who produce food and provide health related service. You stop those you hurt them too.
SolaceQuantum 7y ago
A business is supposed to be responsible to avoid hiring people into hazards they didn’t sign up for when they were hired, but now cannot leave for risk of being jobless in the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  The issue is, should they regulate the particular behavior of a corporation, by dictating their business practices? No. Other things they could have done: Rule that businesses have to protect their employees in certain ways (masks, sanitization etc) Rule that employees density must be reduced (fewer per building etc) Rule that testing should be done to detect issues quickly Instead, they decided to make lists of what should be shipped. Which backfired, since Amazon can't keep the doors open on a tiny list of products. And further, the list was wrong. Who says I don't need 6 yards of plastic sheeting, to separate my house into separate zones and reduce infection from quarantined individuals? What about small plastic bottles to dole out hand sanitizer to family members that are essential personnel not being supported by their institution? What about 100 products the French never thought of, that can help? It was a small-minded wrong-headed decision, just ripe for unintended consequences and disaster. Which they got. Those folks will be jobless soon, but now it's because of the French decision.

tumetab1 7y ago

This is weird... > Amazon “evidently failed to comply with obligations to protect the health of employees,” judges said in their Tuesday ruling. That results in > a court order banned the sale of non-essential goods, concluding the retailer isn’t doing enough to protect staff from the Covid-19 pandemic. I think there's something missing from one reason (not good enough health practices according to the judge) to lead to ban non-essential goods sales. Can some fill in what's missing (with references) please?

Softcadbury 7y ago
Less sales leads to less activity and deliveries
- BoorishBears 7y ago
  Realistically, it's they want to have their cake and eat it too. If Amazon is not taking precautions and putting the population at risk, they should be shut down. Amazon is already putting massive delays on non-essential goods (delivery times have moved from 2 days to up to 1 month) in order to prioritize moving essential goods. Not to mention, they've said they're hiring due to the massive influx of orders for essential goods. So logically speaking, if a large portion of their current activity is already essential goods, what is this besides a way to look like they're standing up to the big bad foreign tech company while getting to keep their deliveries flowing in (all without actually protecting anyone)
  - samcday 7y ago
    > So logically speaking, if a large portion of their current activity is already essential goods I think the point is many suspect that is not the case. https://thegrio.com/2020/04/01/amazon-worker-strike-covid-19-dildos/ https://thegrio.com/2020/04/01/amazon-worker-strike-covid-19...
    - BoorishBears 7y ago
      This is the first week since demand spiked due to COVID that 3rd party sellers are even allowed to sell non-essential goods on Amazon, and they make up over 50% of sales: https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-seeks-to-hire-another-75-000-workers-11586789365 https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-seeks-to-hire-another-75... It’s true Amazon is still selling non-essential goods, and I understand why the man is frustrated, but it’s very clear even with just “essential goods” being sold, Amazon will still require a large part of their current machinery. When you’re talking about an organization as large as Amazon Fulfillment, and a virus as infectious as COVID, these half-measures definitely come across as more for optics than actually stopping the spread.

twodave 7y ago

Is this really the time? I feel like whatever errors Amazon have made with regard to protecting its employees have largely been realized in France by now, and I have serious doubts in the efficiency of forcing a closure having a near-to-intermediate term impact. More likely this is just going to put fulfillment further behind and halt progress in order to protect people who would already have gotten the virus by now. At some point it’s just more prudent to recognize that the birds have flown and your opportunity to fix the problems isn’t in the next 24 hours but in the next year or years.

FriendlyNormie 7y ago
No one could possibly sincerely think this measure would protect anyone. The point of this measure and many similar measures we’ve been seeing is not to protect people but rather to remove more and more perks of society and then eventually only allow an individual to access those perks again if they agree to receive Bill Gates’ subdermal personal identification microchip.
bluntfang 7y ago
>I feel like whatever errors Amazon have made with regard to protecting its employees have largely been realized in France by now I guess I'm going to have to believe the people actually intimately involved in this, like the courts, instead of an armchair analyst on hacker news.
- Noos 7y ago
  Th EU in general has shown a willingness to use the courts to punish or fleece American companies. I wouldn't trust them at all.
  - bluntfang 7y ago
    Those poor companies. They definitely deserve some sympathy along with their billions in profits and their employees definitely don't deserve safe working conditions.

js4ever 7y ago

French government completely failed handling of wuhan virus, a lot of french peoples are asking for an official resign of the president and health ministry ... So I guess they are just trying to put the blame of someone else ... Like Amazon

speedgoose 7y ago
Are you sure ? Macron's popularity is going up and 96% of the French population approves the containment. https://www.marianne.net/politique/popularite-de-macron-une-hausse-mecanique-et-sans-lendemain https://www.marianne.net/politique/popularite-de-macron-une-... https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/coronavirus-96-des-francais-approuvent-les-mesures-de-confinement-annoncees-par-macron-20200319 https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/coronavirus-96-des-francai...
js4ever 7y ago
Wow so many downvotes? Is that forbidden to expose an opinion here?
- pjc50 7y ago
  - use of "wuhan virus" - unsupported claim about Macron unpopularity; he certainly was unpopular, to the point of riots, but the coronavirus response seems to have improved his popularity.
  - js4ever 7y ago
    What's wrong with wuhan virus? Its a virus, it's started in wuhan .... Like spanish flu ... Is it forbidden to name it with a link to china? Also here is a link supporting my claim: https://www.ladepeche.fr/amp/2020/03/25/gestion-de-la-crise-sanitaire-au-moins-cinq-plaintes-deposees-contre-le-gouvernement,8818460.php https://www.ladepeche.fr/amp/2020/03/25/gestion-de-la-crise-...
    - pjc50 7y ago
      Spanish flu, surprisingly, did not start in Spain. What is the purpose of linking it to China? Anyway, how do you know about Macron's popularity?

harryf 7y ago

The other side of the story... https://www.france24.com/en/20200414-french-court-faults-amazon-over-virus-safety-limits-deliveries https://www.france24.com/en/20200414-french-court-faults-ama... or https://www.ft.com/content/1ad863ef-dc39-43a3-b714-e5ef3c4a8e15 https://www.ft.com/content/1ad863ef-dc39-43a3-b714-e5ef3c4a8... > Laurent Degousee, of the SUD-Commerce union that was behind the complaint, acknowledged that Amazon had "not stood idly by" amid the crisis but had taken a "slew of measures without any evaluation". > He said that the taking of temperatures had sometimes caused queues and thus risked possible infection. So Amazon had the choice of either; a) taking the court ruling seriously and doubling down on efforts to ensure worker safety and working out what needs to be done to lift the suspension or b) raising a middle finger and threatening to suspend all deliveries, thereby adding fuel to the notion that Amazon doesn't take worker safety seriously and creating opposition in France that will now work on strategies for "what to do if Amazon pulls out of our market?" Which one seems like a smarter response?

onli 7y ago
To be fair, if the deadline is short and if it's indeed unclear which activity Amazon is allowed to do now, taking a moment to figure that out is not that bad of an idea.
- mirekrusin 7y ago
  Yeah, 24h, sometimes I'm waiting for simple email reply longer, bit tight.
- bluntfang 7y ago
  >taking a moment to figure that out is not that bad of an idea. This is a tax. The whole point is that they should've been doing this from the start. They've had 4 months of moments to figure out how to keep their workers safe, and the fact that they have union busting history makes this all worse.
  - syshum 7y ago
    The best way to keep the workers safe, is to send them home Now people complain that they are sending them home Amazon is just todays "big evil corporation" and nothing they do will be "correct"

frenchman99 7y ago

They don't threaten, they obey the court that asked them to suspend deliveries because employees were not properly cared for. Let's not turn things around. Don't worry, if Amazon stops selling altogether, small businesses will be more than happy to take back some market share.

elcomet 7y ago
Except that they won't be able to meet demands, especially for important products such as medical or safety products.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  Then Amazon may need a carve-out in best practices to supply essential services, which is what every nation has had to do in this highly-dynamic crisis.
  - true_religion 7y ago
    Did you mean to say company? Because Amazon isn’t a nation, they simply comply with the best practices set out by the governments they operate under. In this case the French government gave an order, which they need more than 24 hours to comply with, so they are temporarily shutting down in order to understand the law and make changes.
    - deleted 7y ago
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    - jshevek 7y ago
      Carve out can mean spin off, but it can also mean exception, including an exception to a law that lets a company operate. That's how I interpreted the parent.
    - 7y ago

Zenbit_UX 7y ago

As much as Amazon deserves some bad publicity for how they handle their warehouse and wholefoods workers in the US, in this case I feel like they're being vilified unfairly for the shipping of non-essentials. Walmart is shipping whatever-the-fuck, I can order nightstands and a bed on wayfair and weed from the SQDC (government)... Let's be clear, marijuana is not an essential for all but a very small percentage of the population using it as medecine... Yet everyone's roasting Amazon for operating like it's business as usual while the smaller players run wild.

onli 7y ago
Shipping non-essential items is not the problem here. They can ship whatever they want, but while doing so have to protect their workers. Amazon is infamous for creating horrible working conditions in their shipping centers, it's not a surprise that how they react to the virus is observed very closely. Especially in a country like France that already has a critical stance towards big US companies.
- deleted 7y ago
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- malandrew 7y ago
  > Amazon is infamous for creating horrible working conditions in their shipping centers Has anyone actually done a fair comparison of Amazon warehouse working conditions with those of other warehouses? Other than the presence of robots to help our their workers, nothing I've seen and read about strikes me as being out of line with any other warehouse. Or are they just the ones getting the flack because they are the largest and most visible?
  - negrit 7y ago
    It's not a race to the bottom.
    - krapp 7y ago

stevespang 7y ago

Bezos raises the middle finger and just shuts all distribution centers down, touche !

samcday 7y ago

I can only see it like this. Amazon share price and business activity is surging as a direct result of Covid-19. They need to hire 100,000+ workers to meet the demand. However, the same thing they are profiting from (Covid-19) should also increase many of their operating expenses. Things like healthcare, paid sick leave adequate for the situation (so at least 4 weeks for proper quarantine), good PPE, in-depth infection combat strategies, and so on. The problem is those operating expenses are only obvious if you have ethics/morality/whatever that concludes individual human life is more valuable than money. So if you're a big corporation that has been designed to enrich shareholders and the space company fantasies of your ego-maniacal CEO, you fight as hard as possible against taking on those operating expenses.

matz1 7y ago
They do have moral, it might not be the same as yours, they moral could be to make money. Moral is subjective.
- cmendel 7y ago
  Businesses are intrinsically amoral. While humans may have different moral goods, companies only have to make money and, as such, need not concern themselves with petty human morality.
  - matz1 7y ago
    Business are made of group of people, people have moral. Business morality is based on its people. Making money itself is a moral.
hedora 7y ago
> Things like healthcare, paid sick leave adequate for the situation (so at least 4 weeks for proper quarantine), good PPE, in-depth infection combat strategies, and so on. They are already doing all the things you suggested: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employee-benefits-2017-8?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employee-benefits-201... https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazons-actions-to-help-employees-communities-and-customers-affected-by-covid-19 https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazons-actions-to...

lacker 7y ago

I’m glad that this is not happening in my country. Banning Amazon from selling nonessential items seems detrimental to society. The “nonessential items” that Amazon sells are still pretty important for living my life. I’m sure there are some ways that worker health could be protected better, but at this point I wouldn’t trust the French government to make intelligent judgments on behalf of public health.

Darkstryder 7y ago
As most democratic countries, France has a complete separation between the government and the justice system. This is a justice decision. The government has nothing to do with it.
- ensignavenger 7y ago
  Not sure where the above poster is from, but some parts of the world use a different definition for "government" than other parts of the world. In the USA, for example, all three separate branches of "government" (Legislature, Executive, and Judicial) are considered "the government".
  - Darkstryder 7y ago
    I'm French. In french "gouvernement" (french word for "government") only refers to the executive branch, and our justice system is strongly attached to its independence from the two other branches. So it seems strange to me to conflate all three branches together. Interestingly, in the French wikipedia page for "gouvernement" [1], there is this paragraph : Différence avec le terme anglais En anglais, le mot « government » s'applique non seulement au gouvernement au sens où on l'entend en français, mais aussi aux collectivités territoriales et aux administrations publiques, aussi bien centrales que locales. Le concept le plus proche en français est donc celui de collectivité publique, qui englobe les institutions politiques qui incarnent directement les pouvoirs législatif, exécutif et judiciaire, ainsi que l'ensemble des administrations qui leur sont rattachées. Which can be loosely translated as : Difference with the english term In English, the word "government" includes not only the executive governement like in French, but also all local and global public administrations. The closest concept in french is therefore "collectivité publique" which encompasses institutions for all Legislative, Executive, Judiciary powers, as well as all administrations under their authorities. I learnt something new today. [1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouvernement https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouvernement

soufron 7y ago

Well, what do they "threaten" about? They were ORDERED to stop deliveries :D

Traster 7y ago
They were ordered to stop delivering golf clubs and in response are threatening not to deliver personal protective equipment.
- hedora 7y ago
  Did the court order include an “essential” / “not essential” categorization of the ~ 44 million items in Amazon’s catalog? They say they’ll take 7 days to comply with the court order. That means they have to accurately categorize 6 million catalog items each day. Even if they had the perfect list the court is requiring, they still need to somehow stop inflows of non-essential items from overfilling their warehouses. The court has ordered them not to clear the warehouse space by simply selling them, as they normally would. Instead, they have to establish some new process (ship the items back?) while deliberately lowering the staffing levels of their warehouses and distribution centers. They already did a rough first pass of all of these things, and have been incrementally improving. This court ruling specifically rejected their current course of action. There’s no way they’ll be able to do significantly better in a 24 hour window.
  - Traster 7y ago
    If you view it as them having to make a decision on 44 million items there is no time frame that you can make sound reasonable. Is categorizing 44 million in a day reasonable? I don't know. I personally wouldn't have thought categorizing 6 million was reasonable. But then again the fine is 2cents per item they stock per day, so it sounds pretty reaosnable.

papermachete 7y ago

Amazon has more to lose than France.

frockington1 7y ago
Unfortunately the French courts don't seem to understand this. The only people meaningfully hurt by this will be French citizens employed by Amazon
- kyboren 7y ago
  That's not true. People relying on deliveries from Amazon's French logistics network will also be meaningfully hurt by this.
- bhelkey 7y ago
  The article mentions, > "informed employees at the six French fulfillment centers that they’ll be on a partial unemployment program with full pay." As another poster mentions, I see this as a loss to the French consumer at a time when eCommerce is already strained.
- user5994461 7y ago
  Employees will get 80% pay for staying home. Standard unemployment packages for all those laid off because of the virus, announced a few weeks ago nationwide.
dingo_bat 7y ago
That does not mean Amazon should just give in to dictatorial governments.

BiteCode_dev 7y ago

As a french, I'm ok if amazon suspends deliveries. We have plenty of other websites to order from: fnac, darty, ruducommerce, cdiscount, etc. This is going to be good for the french economy, and a good message to american giants that they are not above the law.

malandrew 7y ago
And all those other websites should have to comply with the exact same restrictions or shut down. The law should not be applied unequally to just one company.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- frockington1 7y ago
  Europe is desperately trying to feed domestic growth. I'm not trying to justify their actions, but I think it might explain some of the lopsided laws
  - brynjolf 7y ago
    Or rather we don't agree with the notion that companies stand above the laws of a country. The USA has insane bias towards companies to the extent they get better benefit as people and even qualify as people.
    - dwaite 7y ago
      Obviously $1mil per infraction is a bit lopsided when the definition of which products are infracting is not clearly spelled out. Likewise, coordinating a review and implementing all measures in a 24h period is obviously not feasible when that hasn't happened over the last month(s). This was phrased as a threat in the article title, but I don't see how Amazon had any choice until implementation of measures is either done or they have an answer to a court appeal. Likewise, there could be a case to be made that measures should already be implemented, but there is no documentation in the article over what progress there has already happened. Per this court order and event, I again don't see another response by them. My understanding per the article is that this is not about applying a uniform set of safety standards, so there is no legal template we as outsiders can use - say, the safety standards implemented by their French competitors - to judge whether this order is or is not "fair". I also don't think it is my place to judge. Instead, Amazon has the right to determine whether or not they provide service within a country under that country's laws, and to raise awareness if _they_ feel the judicial system is giving illegal preferential treatment disguised in the context of crisis response. I don't see that as happening here either, though - at least not yet.

darksaints 7y ago

Not defending Amazon's petty childish antics when they deal with government, but "essential" has a relative meeting. What is essential to you, may not be essential to me, and vice versa. Two small examples: My friend started a new remote job last week after about 6 months of unemployment...a feat that was amazing considering the fact that most companies are laying off. He was required to buy a laptop, which was to be reimbursed. He had extensive difficulty buying a laptop that met the required specs because most computer stores are considered non-essential, and amazon had delivery times that were too long. The other was in Target. I saw someone buying a ton of furniture, while crying. I asked if they were okay, and they responded that their house burned down a month ago, and they had been staying in a hotel while insurance was processing everything, but their hotel time limit had passed and they were forced to move into an empty apartment because their furniture company shut down operations due to being non-essential. She had spent the night on a bare hardwood floor with her husband and toddler.

A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago

What else can they do? They either comply with the law or stop delivering to avoid non-compliance and enforcement. Do not get me wrong. It is big news, but if Amazon gives up on EU front, American workers will demand the same treatment. /s We can't have that. /s

mschuster91 7y ago

It's time for anti-trust regulation to step up. Companies that can essentially extort a nation state and its independent justice system simply due to their size and market power have grown too big and should be split up. The behavior that Amazon has shown regarding covid19 in the past few weeks, including firing union activists, should under normal circumstances warrant jail time.

mrsisterfister 7y ago

The French - ALL French- are lazy cunts and faggots - that’s the problem here - not Amazon

mrsisterfister 7y ago

The real issue here is simply that the French - ALL French - are thee (notice I said thee) laziest bunch of crybabies I have ever seen. I hope that amazon slow rolls the country to a clamorous outburst.

throwaway284629 7y ago

France should call this bluff. Amazon is trying to push around a democratically enacted law. They are not above the law. If Amazon was suspended in France a domestic competitor would rise up in a year or two, and Amazon would never regain the market. They would not dare suspending services, this is just a disgusting stunt

koheripbal 7y ago
France is not geared up for spawning an Amazon competitor. Aside from one year being waaay too late given the current crisis.
- user5994461 7y ago
  There are many online shops that provide the same as Amazon: Cdiscount, rueducommerce, darty, fnac, etc... That's for non food items. For food, all the major supermarkets have been offering delivery for the major part of the decade, long before amazon.

erowtom 7y ago

It's now official, Amazon suspended all delivery services in France for 5 days, starting tonight. (In French: https://www.bfmtv.com/sante/direct-coronavirus-covid-19-france-confinement-deconfinement-reouverture-ecole-obligatoire-attestation-aide-exceptionnelle-masque-mort/?liveanchor=9850ccf14f8f153787dbaa49f87f93be#9850ccf14f8f153787dbaa49f87f93be https://www.bfmtv.com/sante/direct-coronavirus-covid-19-fran...)

mcguire 7y ago

Ultimatums are dangerous. If Amazon follows through with theirs, they are gambling that they are too important to lose. That seems like it would be a poor bet; they may lose their EU market.

dwaite 7y ago
They were given an order they couldn't achieve compliance for, which fined them 1mil per infraction against rules that were too broad to implement. I fail to see a response other than - stay operating against the order of the court, or close until they can be in compliance with the court.
- mcguire 7y ago
  The unions' complaints date from before when the lawsuit was filed. In March. "“While the prime minister last March ordered the closure of non-essential businesses and activities bringing together more than 100 people simultaneously, due to the coronavirus epidemic, Amazon continues its activity as if nothing had happened,” a union spokesperson said alongside the lawsuit. “Despite not only the mobilisation of staff and formal notices from unions, inspection and occupational health, but also criticism from the ministers of economy and labour.”" The ruling called for Amazon to limit orders to a rather specific group of items; I have not heard that other companies in France have had problems understanding. (Although I understand some stores in my state had to be told that "no, even if what you sell is considered essential in another state, you still have to obey this state's order.") And the ruling has been suspended pending appeal. "The ruling, which has already been suspended pending appeal, required the company to only accept orders for groceries, toiletries and medical products as part of the wider lockdown imposed in France....Amazon immediately appealed against the ruling, securing a suspension of the requirements until conclusion of the appeal." Amazon didn't seem to have problems when the limitation was its own idea, at least temporarily. "Amazon temporarily, in late March, stopped taking orders for some non-essential products in France and Italy, in a move to implement social distancing guidelines at the company’s dispatch centres in those countries. Now the company says it is “prioritising” essential products in those countries, but non-essentials continue to be available." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/amazon-sales-non-essentials-french-court-ruling-union https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/amazon-sales-n... But all that aside, no country likes to be dictated to by a foreign company, and I rather suspect Amazon has less power in France than, say, the United Fruit Company in 20th century Nicaragua. Amazon is gambling that French consumers value its services enough that they will oppose the likely long-term response from the French government. I personally wouldn't take that bet.

chriselles 7y ago

Some possibly relevant context, or just interesting anecdotes of Amazon in Europe: When Amazon.fr opened back in 1998/1999 in Orleans, there was industrial action on pretty much Day 1. It kind of fit the French stereotype of industrial action to a T. When Amazon.de opened a bit before Amazon.fr in Regensberg, there was an issue with Amazon's book database(at the time we were only selling books) where books banned in Germany(such as Hitler's Mein Kampf) were viewable and able to be purchased in Germany which caused a bit of a media stir at the time. Things were much simpler back then, in every way.

user5994461 7y ago

Translations from the Amazon twitter thread, that has more details. Top twitter comment from Amazon: Following the decision of the court on 14th April, we (Amazon Inc) have to temporarily suspend activity in our distribution centers. Decision from the court, in a screenshot few comments below: We order Amazon Inc to evaluate work-related risks inherent to the covid-19 pandemic, across all its warehouses and to put in place measures expected by article L4121-1 from labor laws (not sure what's in this article)... we order Amazon, until the above measures are put in place and within 24h of being notified of this decision, to restrict warehouse activity to reception of merchandises, preparation and shipping of food items, hygiene items and medical supplies, otherwise it will be subject to a fine of 1M EUR per day late and per infraction. https://twitter.com/AmazonNewsFR/status/1250481148209369088 https://twitter.com/AmazonNewsFR/status/1250481148209369088 https://twitter.com/BlaisePere/status/1250522103952158722/ph.. https://twitter.com/BlaisePere/status/1250522103952158722/ph....

LatteLazy 7y ago

Deceptive headline...

LatteLazy 7y ago

I don't know why so many people feel the need to attack Amazon. They seem to trigger people to a degree not found in many other companies...

stevespang 7y ago

Heh, just reported 4-17-20 that Bezos decides to call the French court's bluff. We'll just shut down all 6 of our distribution centers in France, take that arseholes.