When will Amazon France deliveries restart?

Amazon has reopened its six French warehouses today, May 19, but return to normal will be “progressive”, the general director of Amazon France has said.

Employees can return to work on a voluntary basis for the moment. Today, one third of the 10,000 employees of Amazon in France are back to work.

Next week, 50-80% of employees will be back, again on a voluntary basis, and all the employees will return to work by June 3, said Mr Frédéric Duval.

The reopening plan has been validated by the unions, notably the CGT and CFDT, which took the company to court in April for putting employees at risk during the Covid-19 crisis by not taking enough sanitary measures.

“Risk prevention is not just a matter of putting on tape, gloves, masks and gel", said CGT union representative for Amazon, Harold Propin.

“All the measures that have been put in place involve a change in employees' working conditions.”

Amazon closed its warehouses on April 16, after a court decision forcing the company to only deliver essential products. If this was not respected, Amazon faced a fine of €100,000 per day per offence.

Amazon chose to close warehouses and suspend deliveries while looking for a solution to assess the employee Covid-19 related risk.

Deliveries from third-party sellers have been able to continue as the products are not stocked in the warehouses.

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