The death by electrocution of two young employees at a McDonald’s restaurant in Lima has spurred protests and stoked anger over working conditions in the wider economy, which are viewed as exploitative and sometimes dangerous.
The Peruvian public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the deaths of Alexandra Porras, 19, and her former boyfriend Gabriel Campos, 18, who were reported to have died early on Sunday while cleaning a kitchen at the fast-food outlet.
Peruvian police said that Porras suffered an electric shock while handling a soft drinks machine. When Campos tried to help her he too was electrocuted.
Both were dead when emergency services arrived at the restaurant in the middle-class Pueblo Libre neighborhood.
The death of the pair, who had dated at school and had been saving to study at university, led to protests outside the US restaurant chain in Lima on Tuesday.
The mostly young protesters were also angry at what they say is an exploitative work market with lax labor regulations, poor health and safety standards, and low pay even in the “formal” or regulated economy.
Close to 70 percent of Peru’s workforce labors in unregulated conditions, data from the country’s statistics institute showed.
The McDonald’s operating company in Peru Arcos Dorados said in a statement that it was “working to determine the details of what happened and will contribute with everything necessary in the investigation.”
It announced on Twitter that it would close all its restaurants in Peru for two days of mourning due to the “death of our collaborators.”
Pueblo Libre’s municipality closed the restaurant’s premises for breaching safety regulations.
“The police have carried out all the proceedings, and we as a company have complied with giving them all the information and access to the required spaces of the establishment,” McDonald’s legal representative Ricardo Elias told local journalists.
However, firefighters and municipal security workers on Sunday told local media that they were prevented from entering the restaurant when called to the incident.
Jhoana Inga, Alexandra Porras’ mother, told local TV that her daughter had complained that she was made to clean without proper safety equipment, such as gloves and boots, and had to work 12-hour shifts.
Other family members demanded that the working conditions be investigated.
“If the rights of these young people have been violated, we will proceed with the sanctions, although the money is not important because a life has no price,” Peruvian Minister of Labor and Promotion of Employment Silvia Caceres said.
Peru’s workplace safety agency Sunafil said that it would carry out a 30-day investigation to determine whether the McDonald’s branch was responsible for the pair’s deaths. The restaurant could be fined 189,000 soles (US$56,611) if found responsible, it added.
Enrique Fernandez-Maldonado, editor of the online labor rights magazine TrabajoDigno.pe, said that multinational companies operating in Peru often lacked adequate health and safety standards, and that inspectors were in woefully short supply.
This week, Sunafil reported that it had a total of 661 inspectors in 21 of Peru’s 25 regions to cover about 8 million workers.
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