Peruvian government firms up labor laws after McDonald´s deaths

Arcos Dorados Holdings

28/12/2019 14:59

By Marco Aquino
    LIMA, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Peru´s government on Friday night
announced measures to strengthen penalties for companies found
responsible for workplace accidents, days after two McDonald´s
franchisee workers died in one of its restaurants.
    Minister of Labor Sylvia Caceres said from now on there
would be an automatic closure of 10 to 20 days of businesses
where accidents happened to allow for a full investigation,
which could extend to 30 days if the company´s responsibility
for the accident was determined.    
    "Closure (for the 30-day maximum) will be considered when it
has been determined that the employer has breached its
obligations and thereby affected the health and life of its
workers," Caceres told a news conference on Friday night.
    She made no mention of the deaths of Alexandra Porras, 18,
and Carlos Campo, 19, a young couple who died by electrocution
while cleaning the kitchen of a McDonald´s Corp  MCD.N 
restaurant operated by its Latin American franchisee Arcos
Dorados  ARCO.N .  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N28S3ND
    The general manager of the McDonald's operating firm in Peru
said in an interview with local TV that the drinks supply
machine at the restaurant was suffering from an electrical fault
that its managers had not reported to the company´s maintenance
department.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N28V039
    This week the labor inspection agency found Arcos Dorados
Peru guilty of six "very serious" safety and health violations
that caused the death of pair and proposed the company be fined
$254,000.
    Caceres said that fines for fatal accidents "have no
relevance if they do not even affect the operation of the
company economically."
    "We believe that this is a step forward to reinforce the
dissuasive capacity that the labor inspectorate must exert for
employers who deliberately and irresponsibly breach their
obligations and affect the health of our workers," she said.
    Arcos Dorados said last week that all 29 McDonald's
restaurants in Peru would remain closed until they finished
their own site inspections.

 (Reporting by Marco Aquino, writing by Aislinn Laing
Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
 ((Aislinn.Laing@thomsonreuters.com; +56 223704250;))