Workers at the Conforama depot in Cannes triggered an emergency right of danger on Friday, July 3 and walked off the job after ten dust samples taken from the roof structure above the warehouse all tested positive for asbestos.
Yassine Guennaz, secretary of the Conforama works council for the PACA region, told France 3 Régions that asbestos had been a known problem at the site for years. Decontamination works were carried out in 2009 after asbestos dust was discovered in former management offices, which were then sealed off. But according to Guennaz, those works were inadequate and nothing further was done to protect staff working in the depot below.
It was Guennaz himself who pushed for new tests to be carried out after finding documentation confirming the presence of asbestos on the roof structure. The results, received three days before the strike, were unambiguous. All ten samples taken from the framework above the area where staff work daily came back positive.
When senior Conforama representatives arrived at the Cannes store on Friday and suggested a simple cleaning of the roof structure would suffice, workers rejected the response and immediately invoked their right of danger, a legal mechanism allowing employees to stop work when they face a serious and imminent threat to their safety.
Around ten staff work in the depot, full time and part time. The workers are demanding a full decontamination of the site before returning. A meeting between union representatives and management is scheduled for Monday July 6. Conforama's communications department had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication. Asbestos is classified as a carcinogen and is estimated to cause between 3,000 and 5,000 deaths per year in France.
Source: France 3 Régions