Posted on 06/04/2016 9:23:14 AM PDT by HomerBohn
Imagine if your boss at work could fire you? French union workers can’t fathom it!
It’s extremely difficult and time consuming to fire someone in France which basically demands that companies offer employment for life. Such idiotic labor policies cause all kinds of unintended economic problems such as high unemployment, lots of temporary workers, and reduced GDP. Finally some very basic labor reforms are being proposed in France. Naturally, French unions are going crazy by protesting, rioting, and striking.
Check this out, from Breitbart.com:
As the head of France’s bosses’ federation accused unions of behaving like “terrorists”, the fresh industrial unrest was set to hit transport just days before fans begin arriving for the start of the football championships on June 10.
“The scenes of guerilla-type action in the middle of Paris, beamed around the world, reinforce the feeling of fear and misunderstanding” among potential visitors still anxious after November’s terror attacks which killed 130 people in the French capital, the tourist board said.
President Francois Hollande and the Socialist government are refusing to buckle to the hardline CGT union’s demand that it withdraw the reforms designed to make it easier to hire and fire employees.
“The bill will not be withdrawn,” Hollande told France’s Sud Ouest newspaper. “The text assures the best performance for businesses and offers new rights to employees.”
After attempting to paralyse the country with blockades of refineries and fuel depots last week, the CGT has responded by calling for strikes on the national rail network beginning Tuesday and on the Paris Metro from Thursday.
Air travellers are also set to face more cancellations and delays.
Despite predicted transport chaos, Hollande told the newspaper “the threat remains terrorism”, adding that 90,000 security personnel would be deployed and border security would be reinforced for Euro 2016.
It’s not that hard to imagine fast food workers in New York and California demanding laws that make it next to impossible to fire them. Once they get $15 per hour they know management will try to hire better workers and they will be on the chopping block.
It’s nice to see France move right, even as America keeps stumbling left.
The Obama zombies voted in an unknown foreign exchange student as their president so they could get a free lunch and now they are angry that employers won't be snookered into playing nice!
Everything the central socialist government ventures into that's none of their business turns out to be nothing more than moves to enlarge itself. Complicit Congressrats are guilty of treachery as they believe their job is to increase the power of their employer.
Their stipends should be paid out of their respective state's treasury and senators should be appointed for four year terms by their state legislatures.
Back in the seventies, I worked on a joint program with France and Germany. The US proposed multiple changes to reduce labor hours. All were rejected by France. Finally, a Frenchman explained that they had employment quotas to meet. If they adopted changes that reduced employment, they still had to continue to employ the worker.
French Socialists have no choice. France has had zero economic growth.
And President Francois Hollande is deeply unpopular and risks losing re-election next year.
He won’t win without restarting the economy.
France needs a healthy dose of Right to Work laws.
These zany socialist degenerates are a laugh a minute.
The French riot in the streets because their history celebrates how the French people used rioting in the streets to change their government. Since the beginning of the French Revolution, France has gone from King through various Revolutionary regimes, to Dictatorship, Emperor, King, Emperor, King, Republic, Emperor, Republic, and is now in its “Fifth Republic”. Meanwhile, the English speaking countries have been remarkably stable, learning that effective change is made mostly peacefully in old traditional institutions through the ballot box and community associations and churches.
i) The government is trying to introduce labor law reforms that will make employment (and unemployment) easier, in the hope this will produce more jobs, if with lower compensation and more precariousness;
ii) The unions are resisting, quite rightfully, seeing this as a means of lowering wages and benefits in order to make French firms more competitive and profitable;
The real issue is-- how much of the additional competitiveness is really required due to gross inefficiencies vs. how much is a forlorn attempt to compete with goods imported from Third World countries or factories manned by docile, underpaid Third World labor?
The first issue is legitimate; the second is a hopeless quest that will just lead to lower and lower wages and higher unemployment as we see here and (in a somewaht similar case) in Germany where immigration and the Hartz IV reforms have led to a vast increase in poorly paid part-time work for natives and lots of more cheaply paid foreigners working in factories.
The goal of every Western government at this point appears to be the pauperization of its natives and their partial replacement with docile, compliant foreign rubes.
France is seeing the law of negative consequences here. If an employer cannot easily fire / discharge an employee, he is reluctant to hire anyone outside enormous need. Sometimes this may lead to hiring independent contractors but I’d bet that that too is restricted.
The consequences of this governmental dictate are higher unemployment, lower employment of potential disruptive subsections of society (Muslim), low innovation of business niches and ossification of the established businesses. All of these are being experienced in France and many other members of the EU. Good luck with that!
Has anyone seen a “Made In (some European) country” on anything?
Yes. If you find a product you need or want and it's made in Italy, you can rest assured it is very well made. The Italians don't work very hard or long, IMO, but what they do make, they make very well.
I say this having spent some time in Italy. Interestingly, products purchased in Italy are very expensive, but cost much less here.
I recently picked up a plastic case from The Container Store, made in Italy. I had a choice of three, each made in a different country but once I saw the one made in Italy, I stopped looking.
Well unfortunately I’ve never seen a product made in Europe in the stores. Clothing from Bangladesh/India/Vietnam/etc electronics from China/Korea and a couple of things from Israel but nothing from Europe.
You’re right. It is rare to find something from Europe.
I worked for 10 years under a locally negotiated white collar labor agreement. Fortunately our government does not make a lot of our labor agreements, but only the overarching rules that labor and management follow. On the Grievance Committee, we kept having to deal with unfair attempts by bosses to get rid of people they were unhappy with. Sometimes the had true issues regarding the employee. Finally, after about the 5th such case I said, “Look, you hire these guys and you have 90 day probation in which to decided whether to keep or discharge. Once the 90 days is up they are in the Union and we must protect them.” After that, not everyone skated throught probation, and we had a whole lot fewer grievances. I once saw two bookkeepers and the senior bookkeeper spend an hour trying to reconcile a $1.87 expense. I asked, “Why don’t you just have a $100 annual reconciliation fund, and when stupid little items like this come up, just write them off as lost funds.” I don’t think they used that idea.
You see that very frequently for specialty and high quality items.
When I was a kid, "high quality" was synonymous with "Made in USA," and "Made in Germany" a close second.
Now that we've all benefited from "free trade" it's hard to find any consumer item labelled "Made in USA" that isn't also junk made cheaply to compete with China.
We still make a lot of very high quality industrial goods and machinery: I was very surprised when I read in a German newspaper (much to the astonishment of the Germans) that the USA was the world's largest exporter of machinery in the 3rd quarter of 2015.
I will have to admit it took me a long time to see the game for what it really is. Especially with auto parts, DO NOT BUY CHINESE auto parts.
Can’t they send the workers into Muslim-controlled parts of the city?
That would be the perfect place to hold a riot or demonstration. They could set fire to the Muslim autos and throw Molotov cocktails at their homes.
Basically, if you go to any European shop (France or Germany)....anything that a typical middle-class guy would buy....is Chinese made. There’s still some items for the wealthy...made in Europe...but the common jobs for the middle class are being squeezed out.
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