French workers fight for the right to be lazy

[Kidlicious]

The thing is that's how capitalism really works. You don't know what future prices will be. So you borrow money and make big investments, everyone else sees the shortage that you see and the bottom falls out. It does work sometimes, but often it doesn't. Small countries need economies of scale though to lower their average costs, so it's hard to diversify your products.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

The thing is that's how capitalism really works. You don't know what future prices will be. So you borrow money and make big investments, everyone else sees the shortage that you see and the bottom falls out. It does work sometimes, but often it doesn't. Small countries need economies of scale though to lower their average costs, so it's hard to diversify your products.

small poor countries do not need to lower their average costs. their costs are minimal compared to the 1st world. in addition, their cost of living, which is always factored into the lowest price a producer is willing to sell at, is much lower than in the first world, so a lot of third world producers will always be able to undercut their 1st world counterparts.

So you borrow money and make big investments, everyone else sees the shortage that you see and the bottom falls out

when talking about LDC, theres only one market like this, and thats in primary goods, markets that are demand inelastic. secondly, youre looking at in only in one direction. the reverse is that 1st world banks lend money to third world companies in the form of stocks/bonds/FI/FDI and other capital flows, which create's growth in both jobs and investment. finally, the idea of economics is not to diversify your products, but to one one which you can make better than anyone else.

so where are the problems? 1. structural problems in the 3rd world. 2. closed markets in the first world. the 1st problem is easily fixable by 3rd world govts. the second might take a little longer, and needs all of americas farmers to lose their electoral votes, and start being counted on a 1 to 1 basis instead of this disenfranchisement of the urban population, that so many of you guys support.

[Kidlicious]

You said to things that don't jive

a) small poor countries don't need to lower their average costs

b) small poor countries don't need to diversify

Since I don't want to bang my head against the wall trying to explain your errors this discussion ends here.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

You said to things that don't jive

a) small poor countries don't need to lower their average costs

b) small poor countries don't need to diversify

Since I don't want to bang my head against the wall trying to explain your errors this discussion ends here.

i nominate that quote the quote of the day. since you dont have a clue about development economics, i agree; this discussion does end here.

[Imran Siddiqui]

since you dont have a clue about development economics

Ain't that the truth. Small poor countries have to focus on comparative advantage products and their average costs are already dirt cheap. The problem, is, as you have pointed out, stability in government and accountability in government (so that infrastructure gets build instead of lining the pockets of the leader).

[Dinner]

Back on topic the French Parliment voted to end the 35 hour work week and instead have made working up to 48 hours per week optional for workers. Those who want to work more now can.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4248845.stm

[chequita guevara]

Cue French general strike.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Those who want to work more now can.

In otherwords, those who want to keep their jobs when threatened with firing if they don't work an extra two work days can work extra if they want to.

Yay slavery in the name of freedom!

Dominique Barbet, chief economist at bank BNP Paribas.

"This will mean the end of the shortened working time.

"It means management will decide the working time, not the employees."

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Cue French general strike.

However, the unions' power to call strikes in the event of the plans going ahead is limited, believes Dominique Barbet, chief economist at bank BNP Paribas.

"Only 8% of French workers are members of a trade union. Even if they look strong, they are not strong," he told BBC World TV.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DinoDoc

However, the unions' power to call strikes in the event of the plans going ahead is limited, believes Dominique Barbet, chief economist at bank BNP Paribas.

"Only 8% of French workers are members of a trade union. Even if they look strong, they are not strong," he told BBC World TV.

They were only 7% in 1995, when they last called a general strike. They won that time, too. The problem for employers is, even those who aren't in a union, tend to go on strike during the general strikes.

At the very least, this will usher back in the Socialists next election.

[Imran Siddiqui]

At the very least, this will usher back in the Socialists next election.

Doubt it... either the Socialists were so depressed in numbers they could only offer that many pitiful votes against the proposal, or there were plenty of Socialists voting for the proposal.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

the socialists are the second largest party in france, but they are way behind the top party (UMP.) the socialists and the commies dont even equal the UMP in either the senate or the national assembly.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
the socialists are the second largest party in france, but they are way behind the top party (UMP.) the socialists and the commies dont even equal the UMP in either the senate or the national assembly.

These days, the Socialists are the first party in France when it comes to votes. They scored a flabbergasting victory last year during the regional and European elections (more accurately, Chirac's party scored a flabbergasting defeat of historic dimensions).

The amount of MPs is very unrepresentative of the political composition of France, and is misleading when it comes to judging the future of our politics. Since our MPs are elected in districts, rather than on a proportional basis, the small or extremist parties are vastly underrepresented (IIRC, we don't have any Le Pen supporter in the Parliament, despite them scoring ca. 15% consistently). And when a party has 51% of the votes in plenty of districts, like Chirac's party did last time, it also gets plenty of seats. The minority party has already had the majority of seats (and thus control over the government) in the past.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by pchang
There are plenty of examples where critical labor needs are left unmet. France is one country where a lot of people go on vacation at the same time. A couple of years ago, this occurred during a big heat wave. There were not enough medical personnel to check up on old people left alone and a fair number died of heat stroke.

To be fair, the main reason why so many died is because we were freaking unprepared to a heat wave. The heat we got is commonplace in plenty of developed countries that have warm summers. These countries have all the air conditioning units they want.

In France, the regions with most victims weren't the southern ones (despite the increased heat and the many old people there), but the ones closest to the Atlantic, where Climate stays mild all year long. In these places, people weren't used to the heat, and there was very little air conditioning because there wasn't any need for it previously.

Several things have been said about the lack of medical personnel (vacations, 35 hours), but these arguments were bunk: the hospitals functioned at their normal capacity. It's just that the capacity was vastly overwhelmed by a completely unplanned catastrophe.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Flubber
How does the French law apply to salaried folks?? Take a schoolteacher-- The schoolday could be 6 hours a day, say and the treacher is expected to be there certain times before and after the school bell. But she likely works at home

Teachers are specific: they have few hours of work at school (about 16 to 20) and are paid a generous hourly wage for them. The hourly wage pays for the work at home, which is not precisely counted.

As for hourly folks, if people want a 35 hour week, I can respect that and see no problem except there should be some flexibility.

It does. Although arrangements change from workplace to workplace, most arrangements mean people work like before (on a 39 hours workweek basis) but take a half-day or a whole day off from time to time. In the situations that I know, both the employee and the employer share the decision about when the day off is taken.

Take nurses-- you can't plan for when one gets sick and with a nursing shortage, you probably don't have a pool of people sitting around with the necessary skills and willing to come in. So a unit needs an additional nurse . .. realistically the only option is to call in a regular nurse for overtime. Mrs Flubber only works 22 hours a week and usually gets overtime ( double pay) if she works beyond that.

We do have overtime laws as well. And our nurses get plenty of work to do However, I haven't experienced overtime laws myself when I worked in France, so I can't tell you exactly how it works. Some companies have been known to prefer keeping the old 39 hours workweek, paying the extra 4 hours as overtime (I don't know if it is legal)

Any limit on hours worked needs to be reasonable and flexible. There are probably a number of fields where it is impossible to have a pool of waiting workers available if required, yet work needs to get done

For many jobs where people are paid on a mission basis (most high-skilled jobs actually), the 35 hours are something quite strange, whose specifics I don't know. For per-hour paid jobs, the 35 hours-workweek was actually bundled with measures considerably increasing flexibility, such as the annualization of work (if you're into a seasonal market, you can have huge work to do during one season and very little during others), increased flexibility on the hours of the day that are worked, and increased flexibility for part-time jobs. Should we lose the 35 hours, we'd keep these measures that are often harsh for the workers that bear it.