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| - Some workers at an Electrolux plant in Italy held a limited strike on Friday after objecting to protective masks they said made them sweat, news media reported. The factory in Susegnana, near Treviso in the northern Veneto region, resumed activity on Monday after being shuttered since early March due to the national coronavirus lockdown measures. To respect safety precautions as work resumed, Electrolux provided its employees with Ffp2/3-type masks. Although such masks offer superior protection to standard models, they can make breathing more difficult and some workers complained of sweating on the assembly line. Il Corriere della Sera daily reported that after Electrolux rejected workers' requests to use less protective masks, or for permission to take more breaks, workers launched what they called a "strike to breathe", suspending work for one hour each shift. Reached by phone, an Electrolux spokeswoman told AFP that only 28 percent of workers participated in the strike during Friday's first shift. Workers at Electrolux' four other factories in Italy had not complained about the masks, the spokeswoman said. In a statement, the general secretary of Treviso-based FIOM CGIL union Enrico Botter called for "finding a balance between health protection, quality of working life and labour law." glr/ams/bmm
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