Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
Posted on 07/12/2005 11:43:06 PM PDT by freepatriot32
They might have been congratulated for their "green" efforts in an area of heavy air pollution. Instead a group of French cleaning ladies who organised a car-sharing scheme to get to work are being taken to court by a coach company which accuses them of "an act of unfair and parasitical competition".
The women, who live in Moselle and work five days a week at EU offices in Luxembourg, are being taken to court by Transports Schiocchet Excursions, which runs a service along the route. It wants the women to be fined and their cars confiscated.
Two years ago a business tribunal threw out the company's case. It is now pursuing the women in a higher court, claiming that their action has cost it €2m (£1.4m). The women explained that for many years cleaners used the TSE line for the 40-minute ride across the border, which cost them €110 (£76) a month.
"Using our cars is quicker and at least twice as cheap. And on the bus we didn't have the right to eat or even to speak," said Martine Bourguignon. Odette Friedmann added: "In the evening instead of coming to get us at 9.30pm the bus would arrive at 10.30pm. If you made any comment to the driver you'd get a mouthful of abuse."
"It's absurd and ridiculous," said the women's lawyer, Cécile Klein-Schmitt. "I don't see how any magistrate can find any legal basis for this case."
TSE is also suing the women's employer, Onet-Luxembourg. "They've basically accused us of inciting the car-sharing scheme when we have nothing to do with the method of transport used by our staff," said director Frédéric Sirerol.
The court case will be heard in January next year.
I know it's wrong, but...can I actually root for both sides to lose?
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
I don't see why we should want the women to lose. You have any idea what gas costs in Europe?
And what kind of commercial buses can't you eat or speak on?
Their present, our future....?
Because they're French, of course.
This is a perfect example of why Europe is falling behind us. Having said that our own fascists in elected office are trying to bring more and more of the failed Euro-model here.
For example try to start a taxi company without the official and extraordinarily expense taxi liscences.
What?! Am I to interpret from this that the bus line thinks it has a God-given right to the patronage of these ladies and can tell them how they can use their own cars and who they can share a ride with? The gall of them.
French news all looks like Scrappleface to me.
Careful with the kneejerk label-tossing. It is getting out of control with some folks here.
I don't know where you get your assumptions, but all I see is a group of ladies who want to carpool to work to save money and make their commute a bit more pleasant. You slap some kind of leftis liberal label on them for exercising their freedom of choice as a consumer?
The bus company wants to sue these women for carpooling instead of patroning their overpriced bus service, with overly restrictive rules. They want the government to force the women to patronize their business?
That they could even bring this suit with any thought of possibly winning is scary as all hell! Who should win is not even a question, unless you are somehow favorable to complete Fascism.
What's next? The local hat manufacturer begins suing an old lady for knitting a cap for her newbord grand-daughter, instead of buying the cap from him?
This is silly as all hell!
World gone mad placemarker.
Did you happen to misspell "The Gaul of them."? :=)
If our Supremes were over there, the complainants would probably win the case---something along the lines of eminent domain. But this smacks of a strange wrinkle from WITHIN a single "domain" of private enterprise, since both parties seem to be "private", rather than agents of a burgeoning government run/funded public utility. On closer examination though, the connections to Big Government would probably be evident. In any case, it's exactly what union thugs did in the USA in their heyday. Lots of overlap also with Mafia practices.
"The gall of them"
---shouldn't that be "the Gaul of them", or am I the one
who just noticed the pun. If you meant it, very clever, very clever indeed. I would call it positively
"willyboyishere-ian".
WOW! See my #15---I wrote it before I saw your post.
GMTA. YOU are the one,as it turns out, who is positively "willyboyishere-ian".
You're absolutely right - GMTA, especially on FR. :=)
I like your picture!
Leave it to the Frogs to come up with somehting so stupid. And they want the rest of Europe to join them in their ridiculous EU ways?
My guess here is that the cleaning ladies are a fairly large group, and that they organized what amounts to a rival bus company, complete with profits, but w/o a license. Tres cheap!
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