Saltah'na
Chinese Canadian, or 75% Commie Bastard.
Member # 33
posted
In the same Maclean's Magazine.
Most of you have already heard about the massive protests in France regarding a proposed bill that would increase flexibility for an employer to fire a worker under 26 who has worked for less than two years at said establishment.
The protests have effectively shut down the bill, from what I have told. It is heading for the scrapper. Unions are ecstatic.
Of course the Unions are ecstatic. Part of the reason is that the unions fear that their cherished "job protections" would eventually be disintegrated. I think I have heard that the present job security laws prevent employers from trimming their workforces without paying substantial severance packages. I have also heard that current job security laws make it a whole lot harder to fire bad employees (again without paying substantial amounts in severance). Finally there is a notion stating that whatever job you get will perhaps be the job for life due to these protections.
The Law was created to address growing unemployment among the younger generations, their unemployment rate is around 22%, in minority areas, this rises to 55%.
Personally, I believe that the government is crazy to remove the law. France's Job protections amount to a "culture of entitlement" and therefore are the posterchild for North American Unions. If I heard correctly, France's deficit is starting to balloon to very high levels, the responsibility for this lies with the unions. Like seriously, can I get these protections with insane benefits and severance packages?
France's Job protections need to go. Only then will they be able to solve what ails them.
-------------------- "And slowly, you come to realize, it's all as it should be, you can only do so much. If you're game enough, you could place your trust in me. For the love of life, there's a tradeoff, we could lose it all but we'll go down fighting...." - David Sylvian FreeSpace 2, the greatest space sim of all time, now remastered!
Registered: Mar 1999
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
What, fire everyone & then rehire them again at lower rates? Reagan tried that with the air traffic controllers.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
I wasn't around for that...I take it it didn't go over too well?
So Iran's joining the Nuclear "Club"
Anyone here believe the Iranian government when they say that it's only for energy production?
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
posted
I don't think the protests shut down the law. I think the government decided to keep it with a few modifications.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
At the risk of seeming terminally incurious: What I don't get is, why does anyone who isn't French care? A billion weblogs moaning or yahooing, and almost none of them actually in French, or even by people who own a lot of Airbus stock or something. Another nation's internal economic debate is just a chance for these people to fill in another blank on their "pundit" bingo cards.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
(By these people I mean bloggers, I guess, which doesn't really have anything to do with this thread. Still, grr.)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I've figured some people want to complain or blog about something... even if its not something they are involved in.
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
People love complaining, they love stating thier opinions on something that doesn't even have a thing to do with them, and thier deluded minds actually believe someone cares about what they have to say.
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
quote:Originally posted by Da_bang80: People love complaining, they love stating thier opinions on something that doesn't even have a thing to do with them, and thier deluded minds actually believe someone cares about what they have to say.
The thing is though, in an increasingly interdependent global economy something that affects the French might well affect us all. Besides it's good that we have different opinions available: you don't want to read them all you don't have to (I know I don't want to!) but it's nice to know the freedom exists for those opinions to be out there...and you never know, maybe someone out there will come up with a truly original take on the whole thing. Maybe.
The blogging world is full of a lot of the worst tripe imaginable, but it's a hell of an opportunity to get perspectives you wouldn't ordinarily get from the mainstream media.
As for the French law itself: while I can see the point being made above, I think that job security is important too. People want to get on the property ladder, they want to know that if they get sick or injured through no fault of their own they won't just lose their pay/lose their job, and they want to know that they can start to build a life with a certain level of assurance that the financial carpet won't be pulled from under them. That, I can understand. I'm not for protecting poor workers or making victims of honest companies trying to make a profit, but we have to consider the people involved too and not just treat them as disposable parts of a larger machine.
-------------------- Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Actually, the French have rather a cosseted existence. The entire EU Common Agricultural Policy is basically designed to allow them to continue this idyllic pastoral lifestyle, making their rural areas one big Provencal theme park. When Blair caved in on the CAP renegotiations, he was making us relax our sphincters so that, rather than just getting buttfucked by Bush, we've now got a whole double-anal thing going on with France as well. For France, globalisation is something that happens to other people.
quote:Originally posted by Da_bang80: Anyone here believe the Iranian government when they say that it's only for energy production?
It generates exactly the energy Iran's leader wants- political energy. Iran has been trying to make itself into the leader of the arab world for some time now: that means it's chief goal is to provoke both the US and Israel into attacking them- politically or otherwise (or the public's perception of an inpending/inevitible conflict) so that public support can solidify behind their current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
It's not only the Bush administration that uses public fear of forigners as a political tool.
Check today's news: Rumsfeld is calling any plans to attack Iran "fantasyland", but common sense indicates that every country intrested has a plan to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
Not that Iran would not looove to have a nuke- it would make them the defacto head of all arab countries as their sole superpower.
My best guess is that Israel will airstrike select Iranian military targets (knocking Iran's nuclear programs back only a few years to a decade, but forgoing an all-out war), the US will not officially condone the attack, but will certainly not condemn Israel for defending itself either, and Iran can all itself a victim of Western aggression (thus assuring the status quo and the Cleric's control of every aspect of all Iranian's lives).
Everybody wins. except those killed in the attacks, and those motivated toward terrorism by the attacks and anyone hoping for any freedom in Iran and US foreign policy in the region and...
But what do I know? The NSA no longer responds to my observations... (and after I went to all the trouble of cutting and pasting all the letters from diffrent magazines and newspapers too...)
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
As though "Persia" has existed in any real context in...forever.
As much (or better) chance than Egypt leading the arab countries...and I wont even coment of Saudi arabia's chances.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I think you're missing something crucial here, re who is Arab and who is Iranian, and how that line has been historically demarcated with impressive bouts of violence.
So I find your whole analysis a little suspect.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Lee: When Blair caved in on the CAP renegotiations, he was making us relax our sphincters so that, rather than just getting buttfucked by Bush, we've now got a whole double-anal thing going on with France as well.
I'd love to see Peter Snow illustrating that on one of his big computerised displays on Newsnight. I think even Paxman would be stuck for words at that one.
I admit that as things go in the world the French aren't coming off too badly at all, but I'd still like to think that there were some workplace protections available for workers. Not all employers are scrooges, sure - but by that same token not all employers will treat their workforces fairly, and might just apply a vigorous shafting to the aforementioned workforce if it's without legal cover.
-------------------- Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
Registered: Nov 2004
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