At 05:25 04/09/02 -0700, Tom Walker wrote: (KH) <<<< Jospin's nonsensical 35-hour week in France has now been scrapped -- only a few months after small employers were forced to adopt it. >>>> (TW) <<<< It would be immensely valuable to me, Keith, if you would elaborate on why you call the 35-hour week "nonsensical". I know very well that there is an entrenched tradition of disparaging the reduction of worktime as a response to unemployment. I have investigated that tradition and found it to be based on vile propaganda and sloppy scholarship. I'm wondering if you have some new insights. Surely, you couldn't simply be thoughtlessly retreading the old canards? >>>>
I'm all in favour of shorter working weeks for anybody who wants them. But shorter working hours will only create jobs to take up the numbers of the unemployed if: (a) the weekly pay is cut; (b) the unemployed have the necessary skills to take the surplus jobs created. To quote the example given by The Guardian (as left-wing as any newspaper in England can be), this is why the French labour minister Martine Aubry was thrown out -- because she represented a working class electorate who were impoverished by her and Lionel Jospin's legislation. Keith Hudson ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
