----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Walker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
It's a mystery to me why the Financial Times report posted to Pen-l by Eubulides left out the Camdessus report's commentary blaming France's "growth gap" with the U.S. and U.K. of the last 20 years on shorter working hours or the fact that it called for an end to the "share-out logic." Anyway, it appears that Ian's intuition about the report was right even if the FT didn't mention it -- AFP reports did mention it. Obviously, the scant information contained in even the AFP report doesn't give much to go on, but I would love to see what the Camdessus report's logic was for the notion that scrapping the 35-hour work week would give a boost to France's economy. Perhaps he's thinking it will give a boost to the production of "illth" thereby elevating French GDP to more 'Muriken-like levels? ============================== Here's the Guardian's take on the ancillary issues and the link to the Finance Ministry: http://www.finances.gouv.fr/minefi/actualites/actu2/index.htm [Just click on "Présentation du rapport par M.Camdessus"] French unions force U-turn on sacking laws Jon Henley in Paris Tuesday October 19, 2004 The Guardian France's centre-right government yesterday lost an important battle in its bid to slash red tape that still governs the economy, bowing to union pressure to scrap measures that would have made it easier for companies to shed staff. The highly-regulated labour market and hefty social costs of taking on and laying off staff in France are seen as brakes to growth. It puts France, already toiling under an unemployment level of 9.9%, at a disadvantage compared to the more liberal regimes of Britain or the United States, where it is easier to hire and fire. In the face of fierce union opposition and to the disgust of the employers' federation Medef, France's CBI, the government of prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin confirmed yesterday it had removed several core clauses from a new white paper on redundancy procedures. The paper - "On forward-looking management of the workforce and the accompaniment of economic change" - contained two measures that prompted trade union representatives to storm out of talks with the government last week. The first would have permitted layoffs to "safeguard a company's competitiveness". Even if a firm was performing well now, it would have been allowed to shed jobs if it felt its future prospects were jeopardised by shrinking margins, falling profits, or threatening economic trends. The second would have allowed a company to fire employees who refused to accept "the modification of an essential element of their contract", such as a relocation or a new job description. Both principles, considered in Britain or America as straightforward, have now been dropped from the draft text. Medef was critical yesterday of what it called a "precipitate climb-down" on the part of the government. "If this situation is confirmed, we will consider that the government is giving up on measures that are absolutely essential for corporate competitiveness, growth and employment," the employers' federation said. Union representatives said they were satisfied the state secretary for labour relations, Gerard Larcher, had realised "this would never get through." But unionists also warned the general thrust of the text was still "weighted too much in favour of the bosses." Bernard Thibault of the CGT federation said the white paper was "90% bad." Yves Censi, a spokesman for the ruling UMP party, denied the project had been "gutted" and insisted the government had merely "listened to union opinion." But many analysts said the government, which has suffered three election defeats this year over unpopular reforms to the pension, unemployment and healthcare systems and faces equally controversial overhauls of the civil service, public spending and the school system, wanted to avoid another conflict. France's strict labour laws often require companies to go to industrial tribunals to defend decisions to fire individual employees on economic grounds. Redundancy packages are so expensive, that it is often cheaper to keep staff on than to sack them. Corporate restructuring involving mass layoffs are even harder. After a wave of "stock-market redundancies", or layoffs aimed at shoring up future profits, by French multinationals like Danone, Alcatel and Moulinex in 2001, the then Socialist government introduced a raft of measures to deter what they called "Anglo-Saxon business practices". These included doubling the minimum redundancy pay, forcing companies to offer six months of retraining to help staff find other work, and fining those that fail to develop replacement activities on sites they shut down. But in a time of rapidly shifting consumer behaviour patterns, many businessmen are complaining that France's inflexible employment laws stifle corporate responsiveness, hinder growth and are ultimately counter-productive in terms of retaining - still less creating - jobs. The finance minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, is due to present today a report by a former head of the International Monetary Fund, Michel Camdessus, on "brakes to growth" in France. It will propose several changes including scrapping the 35-hour working week and, rather than fining companies that sack workers, rewarding those that do not.
