French labour laws trigger immense protests

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
there is no logic behind the french labor system. why must it be two tiered?

The reason why the French labour system is two-tiered is because no French government provided an adapted answer to the challenges posed by the service economy. Our labour laws (at elast, those that regulate stable labour) have been originally written at a juncture when people spent their entire life at the same workplace.

The current economy requires more mobility: Things go faster than yesteryear; people have other plans for their career development (with the development of education and individualism, people want more personal development at the workplace); we are having an increasingly mobile collective mindset, with many people studying or working away from home, and with many young people willing to leave the parent's home before fully entering fully adult life.

The challenges posed by the necessary mobility of labour in our evolving society haven't been seriously thought about. As a result, all laws aimed at facilitating flexibility* resulted also in increased precarity. The CPE-crisis has now allowed the emergence of a debate, which will last for some time, in which we are increasingly separating the notions of mobility and precarity. The Socialists and the Communists already have propositions as how to make it possible to have job-mobility, without it shattering all life-projects.

why must lazy workers be protected and young ambitious ones be kept out? why are the best workers be prevented from moving up (that would mean firing the lazy boss)?

What are you talking about?
There are plenty of ways to fire someone in France. And you have a full freedom to change an employee's status in the hierarchy.

why are the most disadvantaged youth not given a chance to get hired (why would employers hire them when they cannot fire them anymore)?

The most disadvantaged youth are not given a chance to be hired, because their other chances in life have been denied or seriously hampered as well. When you grow up in a neighbourhood with an antisocial counter-culture, with mediocre unexperienced teachers, with very bad material conditions to develop your skills, you are put at an actual disadvantage vs the people from cosy middle-class backgrounds.
There are two ways to offset this difference: on the long run, France should become less of a caste society, the ghettoes should be replaced by a more harmonious urban development that allows people from all classes to mix, and the quality of education should get better distributed.
On the short run, those who have grown up in conditions that clearly disadvantage them should enjoy a kind of "affirmative action". The new laws that are going to replace the CPE do exactly that actually.
Considering that the most disadvantaged are, well, disadvantaged, I don't see why you'd support an equal-field law (the CPE) over an affirmative-action one.

Why is making a profit or being highly productive frowned upon in france?

Because profit is made on the backs of the workers and consumers, and people continue to get poorer despite profits exploding (+50% for France's top 40 companies last year)

how can you defend a system that has give you 20% youth unemployment, un taux de chômage des jeunes supérieur à 50% dans les banlieues, and stagnating economic growth, as a good system?

I don't consider it a good system. France is a capitalist country, and I'm a commie. Duh.

its dishonest. you can believe whatever you want, but those who continue to say that this is the right way forward, its dishonest. its putting an ideology above what the facts have shown. its not admitting that its not working. its burying your heads in the sand, like george bush, and pretending that the problem doesnt exist.

Are you aware you're fighting against a strawman here. As a commie, I advocate change. Which is why I am not enthralled by the removal of the CPE (though it sure is pleasant to win a struggle, for once).

its a nation that aspires to mediocrity, a nation where special interests hold even more power than in america, a nation who's alternative to the 'atlantic neo liberalism' has produced nothing but un grand malaise.

Funny that the "special interests" have such a wide support in the French population. Isn't the word "special interests" used to describe the kin of Enron and pharmaceutical companies? Cuz the movement in France is nothing like a conspîracy of a few profiteers, but is representative of a very lage majority of the citizens.


*and they do exist - for example, the reason why I'm posting at this time is because I'm not employed today, something I didn't know saturday evening, when I last left work

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
dis moi, les communistes ont-ils une stratégie globale pour réduire le taux de chômage, pour assainir les finances fédérales, et pour doper l'économie?

I'd like to say yes, but it's not the case. We are too timid on our actual constructive program for the time being. The party spends too much focus on blaming capitalism for creating unemployment, and is too discreet about its suggestions on how a socialist economy would increase employment and stability for all.

parceque jusqu'a présent, vous avez eu que des échecs qui ont menés la france jusqu'ici.

Err, no. The only bigbig thing the commies have really done while in the government (and they weren't even alone) was the Welfare System in 1945-46. It was an essntial component to France's exceptional growth and to the improvement of the average Frenchman's living conditions during the 1945-1974 era.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Err, no. The only bigbig thing the commies have really done while in the government (and they weren't even alone) was the Welfare System in 1945-46. It was an essntial component to France's exceptional growth and to the improvement of the average Frenchman's living conditions during the 1945-1974 era.

yeah youre probably right about that.

[/quote]
I'd like to say yes, but it's not the case. We are too timid on our actual constructive program for the time being. The party spends too much focus on blaming capitalism for creating unemployment, and is too discreet about its suggestions on how a socialist economy would increase employment and stability for all.
[/quote]

its no longer the way forward, its reactionary now. 'we dont have any ideas, but the ones you guys put out must be wrong'

The reason why the French labour system is two-tiered is because no French government provided an adapted answer to the challenges posed by the service economy. Our labour laws (at elast, those that regulate stable labour) have been originally written at a juncture when people spent their entire life at the same workplace.

The current economy requires more mobility: Things go faster than yesteryear; people have other plans for their career development (with the development of education and individualism, people want more personal development at the workplace); we are having an increasingly mobile collective mindset, with many people studying or working away from home, and with many young people willing to leave the parent's home before fully entering fully adult life.

The challenges posed by the necessary mobility of labour in our evolving society haven't been seriously thought about. As a result, all laws aimed at facilitating flexibility* resulted also in increased precarity. The CPE-crisis has now allowed the emergence of a debate, which will last for some time, in which we are increasingly separating the notions of mobility and precarity. The Socialists and the Communists already have propositions as how to make it possible to have job-mobility, without it shattering all life-projects.

there is never any debate in france - reform only happens in the streets. you're right, but you offer no alteratives to the CPE, which was going to do step 1 of creating more mobility.

Considering that the most disadvantaged are, well, disadvantaged, I don't see why you'd support an equal-field law (the CPE) over an affirmative-action one.

because youth unemployment hits the entire country. first deal with that, and then if there are any stragglers, work for them.

Because profit is made on the backs of the workers and consumers, and people continue to get poorer despite profits exploding (+50% for France's top 40 companies last year)

semantics - workers wages are made on the backs of profits. no profits = no employment.
note: there is no doubt that all the profits of france's companies were made abroad. there is no way they made all that money in a country which grew at less than 2% last year.

Funny that the "special interests" have such a wide support in the French population. Isn't the word "special interests" used to describe the kin of Enron and pharmaceutical companies? Cuz the movement in France is nothing like a conspîracy of a few profiteers, but is representative of a very lage majority of the citizens.

special interests are also unions. Less than 10% of employees are members of trade unions, one of the lowest percentages in europe. (even in america its nearly double) yet they are always on strike, preventing any liberalization of services, labor markets, or industry. that is a movement of the minority.

*and they do exist - for example, the reason why I'm posting at this time is because I'm not employed today, something I didn't know saturday evening, when I last left work

désolé spiff, t'es un bons gars, mais c'est le système qui est en train de te baiser. ils t'ont viré d'un job a mi-temps?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
there is never any debate in france - reform only happens in the streets. you're right, but you offer no alteratives to the CPE, which was going to do step 1 of creating more mobility.

Yes we do.
The Commies support the idea of the "Sécurité Emploi Formation", which basically guarantees an income during downtimes, provided that the unemployed accepts the training opportunities.
The Socialists support a relatively similar idea of "Entrée dans la Vie Active", albeit they oppose a guaranteed income.

because youth unemployment hits the entire country. first deal with that, and then if there are any stragglers, work for them.

This argument sounds dishonest to me. The whole pro-CPE propaganda (which you didn't fail to repeat here) was about how it'd create good employment opportunities for the impoverished youth that rioted last year. In this thread, you consistently shot against the rich students who defended their interests against the poor banlieue dwellers.
And now that the equal-field law (in which the students would have remained at an advantage against the banlieue dwellers) is replaced by an affirmative-action law, you are claiming that you worry first for youth unemployment, and second for unemployment among the impoverished in particular?

special interests are also unions. Less than 10% of employees are members of trade unions, one of the lowest percentages in europe. (even in america its nearly double) yet they are always on strike, preventing any liberalization of services, labor markets, or industry. that is a movement of the minority.

1. The low union membership doesn't mean that unions aren't supported. Whenever there's a big strike, regular people are polled about their support for the strike. More often than not, the strike is supported by a majority of the polled.
As to the CPE, the many polls have seen a consistent massive rejection of the text among the people, ever since the issue became salient. The strikers and protestors were the catalysts of that opposition, even though many people simply couldn't take part to these actions (Despite being an anti-CPE activist, I personally couldn't take part on the demo last tuesday: I was at work)

2. There are two main reasons why the unions have small membership: Firstly, they're institutionalized, meaning they have a force in the eyes of the law regardless of their membership. It's different from many countries, where the unions draw their strength only from their numbers and structure. Secondly, many people are afraid to join a union, because only active unionists are protected from being fired.
[edit: forgot the 2]

désolé spiff, t'es un bons gars, mais c'est le système qui est en train de te baiser. ils t'ont viré d'un job a mi-temps?

Nah, I'm a temp worker. They usually call me at 9am, but today they didn't call. I have no idea whether they'll need me tomorrow or not.
Edit: Actually, I have an idea. Manpower has called me while I was editting this post, to tell me that I work tomorrow and wednesday.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

The Commies support the idea of the "Sécurité Emploi Formation", which basically guarantees an income during downtimes, provided that the unemployed accepts the training opportunities.

which only works if you arn't already getting ridiculous salaries for not working, over a 2 year time period. Its very well understood that the higher and longer you give out unemmployment benefits without strings attached (and im not talking about 'proving' that youve been looking for a job, i mean real strings) the higher unemployment you wil l have.

This argument sounds dishonest to me. The whole pro-CPE propaganda (which you didn't fail to repeat here) was about how it'd create good employment opportunities for the impoverished youth that rioted last year. In this thread, you consistently shot against the rich students who defended their interests against the poor banlieue dwellers.
And now that the equal-field law (in which the students would have remained at an advantage against the banlieue dwellers) is replaced by an affirmative-action law, you are claiming that you worry first for youth unemployment, and second for unemployment among the impoverished in particular?

thats right - the disadvantaged are a subset of the youth. it might be that simply liberalising the labor market will fix the problem. if that doesnt work, then you need to study the cases of those who are left behind, and then come up with a solution. you cannot come up with a solution for a subset of a group if you havnt yet figured out what works for the entire group.

The low union membership doesn't mean that unions aren't supported. Whenever there's a big strike, regular people are polled about their support for the strike. More often than not, the strike is supported by a majority of the polled.

but its the same 'regular people' who eat at mcdonalds, and buy 150 euro jeans. over 5 million of them bought EDF stocks when it went public (they became owners of capital, not very anti-capitalistic sounding to me)

[DAVOUT]

The problem with the commies, and often the socialists too, is that they control the powerful syndicates of the civil servants which gave them an absolute power on the ministry of Education (biggest number of civil servants). During the last sixty years they have opposed all reasonable projects, such as establishing some selection among the candidates to university cursus; instead they have organized an absolute "egalitarism" for discouraging the goods when they are not able to improve the "less goods". The result is a yearly production of 100000 teachers of sport when the need does not exceed a few thousands.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

another question is this 'do teachers of sport really need to go to university, or could there be an apprentissment, some other way of formation for them?' thats also cheaper, and frees up uni for other tasks.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
but its the same 'regular people' who eat at mcdonalds, and buy 150 euro jeans. over 5 million of them bought EDF stocks when it went public (they became owners of capital, not very anti-capitalistic sounding to me)

Yes. The French aren't anti-capitalist in their majority. If they were, the Communist party would score much more than its current ~8%.

(a quibble about those who bought EDF shares: they mostly belong to the middle-upper and to the upper classes. They aren't from the same world as those who rioted at the very same moment. Among commies, we estimate that there are about 10% of the French population which benefits the current evolutions, while the others either stagnate or suffer. French capitalism hasn't been in the hands of the "200 familles" for a long time, but the system still benefits a clear minority, even though it represents millions of people).

[Lawrence of Arabia]

By 'current evolutions' do you also mean globalisation? because globalisation, profit and productivity has brought you those jeans that all the protestors in the streets are wearing.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
another question is this 'do teachers of sport really need to go to university, or could there be an apprentissment, some other way of formation for them?' thats also cheaper, and frees up uni for other tasks.

Are you suggesting that they have not the right to go to the uni as equally as others, making bourgeoise studies such as law, foreign languages, engineering, geology, etc?

[Lawrence of Arabia]

why do you treat your universities as necessities for all? not going to uni doesnt devalue you in anyway. they have the right to go to uni, but maybe not to study something like that.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
By 'current evolutions' do you also mean globalisation? because globalisation, profit and productivity has brought you those jeans that all the protestors in the streets are wearing.

Nah, I'm mostly talking about corporate governance, increased profit share, liberalization etc. The liberal globalization is a corollary of it.

The living standards have been dwindling for years for a large part of the population, has stagnated for others. However, it has dramatically improved for only a small part of the population (which, in a country of 60 million, still means millions of people).

Currently, the rents and property prices are skyrocketing, which dramatically hits the young's and the middle-class purchasing power (the older poor often benefit from social housing, but there's no room for younger households).
However, a small part of the population benefits from this, i.e those people rich enough to own enough housing that they can rent some.

Increased profit share happens on the French territory. More and more people earn the minimal wage, whereas productivity is very strong. The companies suck profit off their workers, who barely see the colour of them. When the companies suffer, they demand the employees to suffer the consequences (layoffs), and when their profits skyrocket, the employees see pretty much nil. This is actually such a strong disconnect between the employees and their companies that the right-wing government tries to solve it by actively encouraging employee-shareholding, and premiums given on the grounds of profit.
However, companies see such a thing as an HR operation, rather than as a genuinely financial operation.

Oh, and French protestors already wore jeans back in 1968, before the liberal globalization.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
why do you treat your universities as necessities for all? not going to uni doesnt devalue you in anyway. they have the right to go to uni, but maybe not to study something like that.

Spiffor, this is a question for you.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

The living standards have been dwindling for years for a large part of the population, has stagnated for others. However, it has dramatically improved for only a small part of the population (which, in a country of 60 million, still means millions of people).

the living standard has been dwindling because of lack of growth. I mean, Ireland has passed you in GDP/capita.

Currently, the rents and property prices are skyrocketing, which dramatically hits the young's and the middle-class purchasing power (the older poor often benefit from social housing, but there's no room for younger households).
However, a small part of the population benefits from this, i.e those people rich enough to own enough housing that they can rent some.

Increased profit share happens on the French territory. More and more people earn the minimal wage, whereas productivity is very strong. The companies suck profit off their workers, who barely see the colour of them. When the companies suffer, they demand the employees to suffer the consequences (layoffs), and when their profits skyrocket, the employees see pretty much nil. This is actually such a strong disconnect between the employees and their companies that the right-wing government tries to solve it by actively encouraging employee-shareholding, and premiums given on the grounds of profit.
However, companies see such a thing as an HR operation, rather than as a genuinely financial operation.

I know commies have allergic reactions to statistics, but do you have any?

[Dinner]

On the upside this is good news for British companies. It means the French economy will remain in a funk and that British employers will continue to have a steady supply of trained French workers who will go there to find jobs.