French court upholds order limiting Amazon deliveries amid coronavirus risk • Hacker News Board

Re: French court upholds order limiting Amazon deliveries amid coronavirus risk

#11

Post by touktouk » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 12:47 PM UTC

js4ever wrote: post #10

diih0auV wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that what courts are blaming Amazon for is not to deliver unnecessary goods, but to not care enough for the security of their employees in their warehouses. So basically, it's not a problem for other delivery services who took stricter safety measures. If anything, telling them they can still continue deliver necessary goods is a bit lax, because their employees are not safer processing those. The Amazon answer…

Do you have any evidences about other delivery services taking stricter safety measures?

Well Amazon has been sued by its workers' representatives, lost in the first trial and lost again in the appeal trial.

It is of course possible that other delivery services have similar safety measures and have not been sued yet, or have more lenient workers, or whatever; but still, it offers _some_ evidence that Amazon might have worse practices than others.

Re: French court upholds order limiting Amazon deliveries amid coronavirus risk

#12

Post by diih0auV » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 12:57 PM UTC

js4ever wrote: post #10

diih0auV wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that what courts are blaming Amazon for is not to deliver unnecessary goods, but to not care enough for the security of their employees in their warehouses. So basically, it's not a problem for other delivery services who took stricter safety measures. If anything, telling them they can still continue deliver necessary goods is a bit lax, because their employees are not safer processing those. The Amazon answer…

Do you have any evidences about other delivery services taking stricter safety measures?

This is the responsibility of the DIRECCTE, which handle inspections.

They've been asked by the ministry of work to intensify their inspections during the covid-19 crisis, and they've notified 42 companies they should put themselves in conformity (this is the first step before any legal action to give companies an opportunity to avoid problems, which Amazon ignored).

So all the other companies who did not got problems during their inspection had better safety measures than amazon.

Source [fr] : http://idf.direccte.gouv.fr/Inspection-du-travail-elargissem...

Translated: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%...

Re: French court upholds order limiting Amazon deliveries amid coronavirus risk

#13

Post by kursus » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 12:59 PM UTC

diih0auV wrote: post #7

DelightOne wrote: post #3

How do other deliverers handle this?

Note that what courts are blaming Amazon for is not to deliver unnecessary goods, but to not care enough for the security of their employees in their warehouses. So basically, it's not a problem for other delivery services who took stricter safety measures. If anything, telling them they can still continue deliver necessary goods is a bit lax, because their employees are not safer processing those. The Amazon answer…

Amazon answer according to the article is :

> Unfortunately, [the ruling] means we have no other choice than to extend the temporary suspension of activity in our French distribution centers while we assess the best way to operate with regards to the court of appeal’s decision

So I'm not sure how it's related to what you say. There are a lot of similar businesses that can continue shipping as usual and I would be very surprised if the Law has checked all of them for safety measures respect. It is highly probable that many of them don't do things correctly yet nobody cares. In the end this is typical of the French government hypocrisy that is going for the big (foreign) one just for the sake of symbolism. Cdiscount is a huge French Amazon clone that can still operate as usual, I can bet some of their employees are also at risk.

Re: French court upholds order limiting Amazon deliveries amid coronavirus risk

#14

Post by wlll » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 1:00 PM UTC

js4ever wrote: post #10

diih0auV wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that what courts are blaming Amazon for is not to deliver unnecessary goods, but to not care enough for the security of their employees in their warehouses. So basically, it's not a problem for other delivery services who took stricter safety measures. If anything, telling them they can still continue deliver necessary goods is a bit lax, because their employees are not safer processing those. The Amazon answer…

Do you have any evidences about other delivery services taking stricter safety measures?

https://help.patagonia.com/s/article/Learn-More-about-Our-Op...

Re: French court upholds order limiting Amazon deliveries amid coronavirus risk

#15

Post by alibert » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 1:10 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #2

> the court of appeal extended the list of allowed items to include, among other things, high tech and IT goods. The court also significantly reduced the fines in case of non compliance from €1 million to €100,000 per unauthorized item "received, prepared and/or shipped." That still sounds high enough and vague enough that I expect Amazon will keep their French distribution centers closed for now.

They extended the closure until Tuesday.

But I believe the general public doesn't really notice it because orders are still being taken and delivered via, I suppose, distribution centers outside France.

Friend ordered multiple things last Saturday (supposed to be closed) and he received some packages the next Thursday and today too (Saturday).

Re: French court upholds order limiting Amazon deliveries amid coronavirus risk

#16

Post by diih0auV » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 1:18 PM UTC

kursus wrote: post #13

diih0auV wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that what courts are blaming Amazon for is not to deliver unnecessary goods, but to not care enough for the security of their employees in their warehouses. So basically, it's not a problem for other delivery services who took stricter safety measures. If anything, telling them they can still continue deliver necessary goods is a bit lax, because their employees are not safer processing those. The Amazon answer…

Amazon answer according to the article is : > Unfortunately, [the ruling] means we have no other choice than to extend the temporary suspension of activity in our French distribution centers while we assess the best way to operate with regards to the court of appeal’s decision So I'm not sure how it's related to what you say. There are a lot of similar businesses that can continue shipping as usual and I would be ver…

This is just the latest of their comments. Here is an article from earlier this month: http://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20200416-amazon-close-french-dis...

The relevant part:

> The company said the closure would affect “millions of clients who use our services to have products delivered to their homes during this confinement period” as well as "employees and small and medium sized businesses" that use the company.

Regarding inspection of other companies, please refer to my answer to js4ever in the same thread.

EDIT : also, "others do just as bad" is never a good defense.

Re: French court upholds order limiting Amazon deliveries amid coronavirus risk

#17

Post by cm2187 » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 1:37 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #2

> the court of appeal extended the list of allowed items to include, among other things, high tech and IT goods. The court also significantly reduced the fines in case of non compliance from €1 million to €100,000 per unauthorized item "received, prepared and/or shipped." That still sounds high enough and vague enough that I expect Amazon will keep their French distribution centers closed for now.

Also what is odd is that we seem to have gone from “social distancing and lockdown to slow down the progression of the disease to within the capacity of the healthcare system” (flattening the curve) to “this virus is the new ebola and anyone who doesn’t have extra protection is putting their life at risk”. While at the same time the additional testing and antibody testing are confirming that the virus is marginally more lethal than the common flu.

Now I understand why medical staff would need extra protection as 1) we badly need them healthy now, and 2) they are facing heavy viral exposure which apparently really increases the risks. I can understand why clerks in grocery stores, bus drivers, anyone with frequent contacts with the general public would also want extra protection, as they may have much greater exposures than anyone else. But employees in a warehouse? Really?

Re: French court upholds order limiting Amazon deliveries amid coronavirus risk

#18

Post by jefftk » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 2:14 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #17

jefftk wrote: post #2

> the court of appeal extended the list of allowed items to include, among other things, high tech and IT goods. The court also significantly reduced the fines in case of non compliance from €1 million to €100,000 per unauthorized item "received, prepared and/or shipped." That still sounds high enough and vague enough that I expect Amazon will keep their French distribution centers closed for now.

Also what is odd is that we seem to have gone from “social distancing and lockdown to slow down the progression of the disease to within the capacity of the healthcare system” (flattening the curve) to “this virus is the new ebola and anyone who doesn’t have extra protection is putting their life at risk”. While at the same time the additional testing and antibody testing are confirming that the virus is marginally m…

> additional testing and antibody testing are confirming that the virus is marginally more lethal than the common flu

15,411 people have died of covid in NYC, though excess death numbers suggest that this is an undercount and it's more like 19,200. [1] The population of NYC is 8.4M. If everyone in NYC had been exposed this would give a death rate of ~0.18%, or ~0.23% after adjusting for excess deaths. Antibody tests say ~21% [2] of the population has had it, so multiply by 5 and it looks like if everyone got it about 1% of people would die. That's about 10x more deadly than the flu.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/nyregion/coronavirus-anti...

Re: French court upholds order limiting Amazon deliveries amid coronavirus risk

#19

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 2:14 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #2

> the court of appeal extended the list of allowed items to include, among other things, high tech and IT goods. The court also significantly reduced the fines in case of non compliance from €1 million to €100,000 per unauthorized item "received, prepared and/or shipped." That still sounds high enough and vague enough that I expect Amazon will keep their French distribution centers closed for now.

The order from the court of appeal (linked in the article, although it's in French) is much more specific. It lists specific product categories on Amazon's website, and says that only things that were in those categories as of April 21 can be shipped.

Re: French court upholds order limiting Amazon deliveries amid coronavirus risk

#20

Post by jefftk » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #19

jefftk wrote: post #2

> the court of appeal extended the list of allowed items to include, among other things, high tech and IT goods. The court also significantly reduced the fines in case of non compliance from €1 million to €100,000 per unauthorized item "received, prepared and/or shipped." That still sounds high enough and vague enough that I expect Amazon will keep their French distribution centers closed for now.

The order from the court of appeal (linked in the article, although it's in French) is much more specific. It lists specific product categories on Amazon's website, and says that only things that were in those categories as of April 21 can be shipped.

Thanks! That does sound much better!