Employers are "responsible" for "putting in place the necessary protections" for their employees against coronavirus, recalled Sunday Muriel Pénicaud, citing the examples of truck drivers or Amazon.
The Minister of Labor insisted on the necessary exercise of "social dialogue" in each company to define sufficient means and rules of protection, and on the "role" played by "the labor inspectorate", which continues its activity during containment.
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"The law provides that they are responsible for putting in place the protections," she explained in the program "Le Grand Jury RTL / Le Figaro / LCI". "They are not responsible if someone is sick in the end, but they are responsible for the means they have put in," she insisted. She also recalled that the ministry had started to publish Friday practical sheets of health prevention against the coronavirus by sectors, by specifying that these sheets were "normative". If the employers "do not respect the guides, well then they are at fault", she warned.
Progress still to be made at Amazon
The minister notably cited the case of Amazon. "Last week, I called the general manager of Amazon", where the unions had reported breaches in the number of health prevention rules, she said. "They changed a part (of the rules) but that is not enough, they are not yet at the end and therefore we do not give up until it is the right measures to protect the employees."
Another sensitive situation is that of truck drivers, faced with the double problem of the organization of work and the closure of many motorway areas, where the toilets are no longer cleaned, nor catering provided.
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"It is one of the first three guides that we have released, which suddenly becomes the norm: all transport companies must now respect it," warned Muriel Pénicaud. The CFDT, FO and CFTC road transport unions called on drivers to exercise their right of withdrawal "individually" from Monday in the event of "breaches" of the protective measures. "There is the imprimatur of the Ministry of Labor, of the Ministry of Health, we do not give it lightly," she continued on the cards. "It means that at that point, you can be a truck driver and work in complete safety, that means that companies now have to do it," she insisted.