Tom Walker wrote: [...]
2. I most definitely DO NOT support a reduction of hours with a CORRESPONDING loss of pay... Any time you get down to arguing just about more income for more hours or less income for less hours, you've oversimplified the question.
[...]
If I was a cantankerous sort, I might think that you were deliberately trying to put my position in the worst possible light. I have never, repeat, never said a word in support of "a corresponding reduction in pay." There are not two polar opposite options here -- one no pay cut and the other a reduction that corresponds to the reduction in hours. Neither are there two polar opposite productivity and/or employment outcomes. In fact, the extremes are the most unlikely of all the possibilities. Most of the actual possibilities fall between the extremes. That is why I oppose the extremes.
--------------------------------------- You're right,Tom. It is easy to oversimplify the issue, and it's true you haven't argued for a corresponding arithmetic reduction in pay equvalent to the reduction in hours. But our discussion began, you'll recall, when you stated (I think on the LBO list) that the traditional approach of the labour movement for a "shorter work week at no loss in pay" was wrongheaded, and that unions should trade off some current income for what you somehow seem to believe will result in an increase in their future bargaining power. But let's look at the most recent application of the principle - the 35 hour week introduced in France in 1999. That law, promoted by the labour movement and introduced by the Jospin government, reduced the statutory work week from 39 to 35 hours AT NO LOSS IN PAY. It's not the case that the unions and government split the difference between what you call the "extremes" by introducing a modest rather than an equivalent pay cut - the position you favour. Because there was no pay penalty, French employers strongly opposed the measure despite that they were heavily subsidized to cushion the effect of the change on their wage bill. (They opposed it on principle, because it expanded the deficit, and because it also interfered with their operational "flexibility".) As you know, the law was subsequently modified and finally rescinded by the Chirac government, despite fierce protests from the French unions and continuing widespread popular support for the measure. Did you support the French legislation? If we can agree that, despite its flaws, it was a good contemporary model of how reduced hours at no loss in pay could be applied, I think we could put our theoretical differences behind us and chalk them up to a misunderstanding. Of course, how feasible a campaign around this issue would be in the current context is another matter. MG
