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March 30, 2020 Employees of the Calenzano plant in the province of Florence are on strike today. Protests also in Piedmont, Lazio and Lombardy. The workers ask for compliance with the safety measures defined in the protocol signed at national level and therefore the monitoring committee between trade unions and the company envisaged by the same protocol. The announcement of the protest after a worker from the Passo Corese depot, in the province of Rieti, tested positive for the coronavirus last Friday.

The announcement of the unions
Waiting for answers from Amazon, it will be a day of strike tomorrow Monday 30 March for the entire Calenzano (Florence) plant, including direct workers and contract workers), for the entire shift. This was announced by the union Filt Cgil, which in a note states: "A table is needed to discuss how to reduce the risks from interference in this coronavirus emergency. Here, 10,000 deliveries are made per day, there are too many, every day about 10,000 packs ( the vast majority would be non-essential goods) - the union continues - they leave the Amazon warehouse in Calenzano to reach the houses of the metropolitan area of ​​Florence ". On the Calenzano site, around 300 workers work daily (including the direct ones and the couriers of the contracting companies). "These workers - Filt CGIL explains - are concerned and would like to reduce the risks of interference in this coronavirus emergency as much as possible". The same union, reads the same note, alerted the prefect of Florence "who made himself available to take action to organize a meeting with Amazon and with the contracted companies to address the issue, but Amazon has decided not to deal with the union ". For Filt Cgil "it is advisable to immediately reduce the number of deliveries per courier per day, to allow workers to meet fewer people. When it comes to health and safety, all the more so during the health emergency that we are experiencing in Italy and in the world, you can't 'let it go' "

The national CGIL writes in today's statement: "We support the mobilizations that are involving workers at the Amazon factories in these hours. Today strike in Calenzano, in the province of Florence, protests in the factories in Piedmont, Lazio and Lombardy where the disputes are still open to request that the health and safety of workers be guaranteed and that delivery activity be limited to essential goods only ". For the Confederation "the only way to deal with the health emergency responsibly is to reduce activities so as to allow for less worker exposure and to adapt the organization of work so as to allow compliance with all indications of the Ministry of Health" . Amazon then choose - concludes the CGIL - the way of confrontation and interlocution with unions and workers. Health and safety must not be sacrificed to any economic interest. "

The company: also in Calenzano warehouse, employee protection
Also in the Amazon warehouse in Calenzano (Florence), measures were taken to protect workers, of which "feedback to trade unions through formal reply sent by certified mail on 28 March" was given. So in summary Amazon, in a note, replies to the CGT Filt which announced a strike by the workers of the center of Calenzano. In its note Amazon explains among other things that "the Committee provided for by the Protocol of March 14 has been implemented in each site as required by Article 13 of the Protocol itself" and that in Calenzano "a meeting has already been held on 23 March and another is scheduled for March 31 with the aim of identifying further processes for improving the safety of the site and people and assessing the effectiveness of the actions taken. As regards external companies, we also promptly invited them to observe the prescription relating to the Protocol ". Amazon explains that it has "introduced a series of preventive measures in all our logistics centers to safeguard our employees and the employees of the service providers: we have increased the cleaning operations of the sites, introduced the minimum safety distance and required couriers to direct at least one meter away from customers when delivering. We are also supporting delivery service providers in the sanitation of vans. " "Starting from March 22nd - Amazon also notes - we have temporarily stopped accepting orders on Amazon.it for many products that are not considered a priority for our customers".