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if a paint sprayer was seen using a screw driver ...they gowned tools and walked out.
it got realy silly.
For most industries in Britain trade unions have no power and no influence. I don't think that's a problem. Things for the most part are pretty good, overall working rights and conditions aren't bad at all.
Too strong unions can have a negative effect of course, just as the lack of them would. Just as the concept of different political parties winning office/being in opposition offer a kind of balance, so businesses are unions should strike the right balance between a productive industry and fair conditions for workers.
Or so the theory goes anyway
I wouldn't disagree with that
The only issue is with France they have a bloated uncompetitive economy due to such a powerful workers unions. In the future, when either the country goes bust a la argentina, or enters a period of stagflation a la margaret thatcher, people are going to lose out. I think having a balance between worker rights and remaining competitive is important. Normally I'm pro capitalist, but had to give a presentation today at a globalisation debate from the point of view of the trade union. Now im quite sympathetic. Though we didn't win, I did get a special mention
What agression?
Oh
I think you really need to read some history.
I think you really need to read some history.
I dunno bout percentage wise, but an awful lot of people live on shitty housing estates, went to shitty schools and work in shitty jobs. Been to London (or indeed any big city) lately?
I've read plenty of history, thanks...
But do you want to say why you disagree, perhaps try and put forward an argument why I'm wrong. You never know we may both learn something...
The sooner one state goes bankrupt, the sooner they all do. This will help bury france just that tad bit faster.
Agree - we're having awful trouble recruiting decent cleaners for our office, so a new flood of unemployed French coming across looking for jobs is good news all round.
They have a tendency to make predictions of catastrophic consequences whenever a proposal is made they don't approve of.
Needless to say such predictions always turn out to be rubbish.
I suggest you wait a while.
Governments regulations always crash the economy, just as any parasite which feeds too much off it's host kills it.
So every 'pro-worker' law has always been beneficial has it?
What is you proposal to reduce unemployment in France?
and this view is of course equally ridiculous...........
Is that a predicition in itself. Its also a fault of the unions and the left as well, if all the predicitions made by her opponents during Thatcher's time had come true we'd be living in a country with the same freedoms as Stalinist Russia and an economy somewhere below Zimbabwe.
I don't think France is going to suddenly collapse this time next Tuesday, but unless they do reform they'll find themselves falling further and further behind their neighbours in terms of living standards, with rising unemployment and without getting the resources to pay for it.
Sooner or later France is will have to do something about it and the sooner they do it the less painful it will be and the more of their social model they'll be able to keep. They're probably at the stage of Heath right now, and like the UK in the 1970's needed reform has been dropped because of the fear a democratic Government has over undemocratic ractionary forces. In the long term France will almost certainly get its Thatcher, but it will be more painful than it could have been.
But, look on the bright side, Starbucks is booming in the UK and always needs new staff...
Not at all.
Because unlike those in the markets, there is no way to refuse the "product" of regulation. So the providing of them increases year on year until the arteries of trade are clogged up, the state collapses economically and the whole thing starts again from near enough scratch -
The only way out of such a mess for a state is war, revolution, see weimar republic, USA these days, or any other dead empire.
Personally it would be unsurprising to have a military coup take place and a twat in the mould of de'Gaul stepping into the breach.
If France has problems with its economy and employment the solution should not be creating temporary, low paid, dead end jobs. That helps nobody in the long term (or even in the short one).
Do they? I would have thought they would have millions of unemployed people to choose from here... all those who were going to find themselves out of a job after the goverment recklessly ignored business leaders who warned it about the dangers of the minimum wage.
From the BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4816306.stm
Its hardly a temping, dead end job given that after six months you have to be given month's notice.
And perhaps even temping is better than being long term unemployed with no prospects. Temping has a chance of being turned into permanent and it builds up skills.
I know plenty of people in the Civil Service who started as temps, built up their skills and then got permanent jobs. My sister started off temping in a private firm, was made permanent and is now on a bloody good wage.
And whilst the French economy does need more than this to jump start it and get people into employment an important lesson we've learned from this is that neither the Government nor the unions are willing to actually do anything about it.
But this law isn't about creating 'McJobs' - its about helping small employers take on extra staff and recognising one of the reasons they don't is the risk that they get crap people or business has a downturn and that they can't get rid of them. And to be honest a crap job is better than no job at all...
What's the minumum wage got to do with anything. Many businesses weren't neccessarily against the minimum wage, they just wanted to make sure Government set it at a level where it was affordable.
Minimum wages only count if you're in employment, so if you're unemployed and employment laws make it harder for you to get a job, they're fuck all use, but being cynical I suppose that union dues only come from people in employment, so the unemployed are something unions don't give a fuck about either.
What happened for countless workers is that they were employed on the short, 'no thrills' contracts for the maximum time the law allowed, upon which their bosses gave them the boot regardless of how good they might have been to avoid having to offer them better terms and benefits. As a result many people found themselves unable to find a stable, secure and decently paid job.
Perhaps many French folks felt this proposed law was going to create the same conditions for them. If so, who could blame them for resisting it?
Bosses only want to pay the minimum amount possible to employees, and they will claim anything to push their agenda.
High tax rates and the transfer payments that goes with them puts cash in people's hands for immediate consumption so firms will hire people on short term contracts to satisfy demand when it is there. This serves to stifle the creation of "macjobs" as firms aren't willing to invest when they are taxed heavily meaning less "macjobs" are created in favour of "mcjobs"
That wasn't claimed though. It was just the start of the reform the french labour market needs and the extreme opposiiton to such a minor piece of reform highlights the problems the French are going to face.
what the fuck are you on about?