France Does Away With 35 Hour Work Week

Awesome.

France’s ruling conservatives are celebrating the mothballing of what they’ve long derided as the most destructive legacy of Socialist rule: the 35-hour workweek. Late Wednesday, a government text gutting the left’s decade-old labor innovation was voted into law, provoking cheers from rightist politicians that France Inc. could now better fulfill one of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s key campaign slogans: “work more to earn more.”

“Companies will at last be able to operate management policy based on a secure legal framework,” DaniÈle Giazzi, a labor specialist for the ruling Union for Popular Majority party (UMP). “It’s a remarkable advance for the economy.” France’s Labor Minister, Xavier Bertrand, the bill’s author, hailed an “historic” revision of a law conceived by the country’s “archaic” left, now in opposition. “It’s the end of the imposed 35-hour week,” he crowed.

Yet Bertrand’s own wording belied a glaring incongruity in the law: while it allows employers to demand that workers spend more time at work, 35 hours remains the reference length of the French workweek. That’s a smart move, since polls show the French are fond of the 35-hour week, and quashing it outright could prove unpopular.

If only Americans’ politicians were talking about “earning” instead of “taking.”

1. At the risk of sounding like a Euro socialist, I’d actually like a 35-hour workweek worldwide but I realize the inherent problems in such a situation and how it would never work. 

   At some point though you have to ask yourself why we as a human race and in America have it set up so we pit ourselves against the lowest common denominator as it relates to work hours--i.e. some person in China working 100 hours a week for little wage.  Sometimes I wonder why we have to compete against that just for the sake of having the latest and greatest Xbox model in our households.

   There was something to be said for a more simple, slower life 30-40 years ago.

   Posted by on July 24, 2008 at 2112 hrs




2. Who would have imagined logical thought coming from France!! Imagine employers and workers (the free market) being “allowed” to function freely...employers need tasks performed to provide their product/service - employees perform tasks in exchange for an agreed-upon wage, which is established by the task’s value (skills required, worker pool available, etc.). 

   ...hmmm...this capitalism thing just might work!!

   But then again, it’s a real shame that those evil employers might ask to cut into the French people’s 70+ hours of non-working, non-sleeping “free” time every week looking for a few more productive hours for the good of their economy.

   Posted by on July 25, 2008 at 0001 hrs




3. Sad day for the workers of France, sad day indeed. Until about 2001, Real Worker Output between France and US were about the same, while US output has slightly increased since then according the Bureau for Labor Statistics at Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and according to a study of Eurozone nations, the French have the lowest pay of any nation with a similar average work week, between 34 and 36 at about 30 thousand pounds(about 60 thousand American). Also French GDP has grown at about the same rate as the US, between 1.6 to 1.9. So this “horrible” 35hr week must not being doing very much.

   Posted by on July 25, 2008 at 0139 hrs




4. Why should anyone be able to tell you how much you can work?  It’s punitive socialism at its’ worst.

   How’s that French unemployment rate TheIdealVoice?

   Posted by on July 25, 2008 at 0729 hrs




5. “work more to earn more.”

   OMG what a concept!!! 

   If only Americans’ politicians were talking about “earning” instead of “taking.”

   Or earning instead of being given…

   There was something to be said for a more simple, slower life 30-40 years ago.

   This may very well be true.

   However, to be honest, I think its still entirely possible for people to live whatever life they wish to.

   If that life would be a ‘simpler slower’ life of 40 years ago, that seems entirely possible.

   One could forgo cell phones and cable television and save a great deal of money every month which would allow them to work less.

   One could forgo a dual car household which is the norm today and have one vehicle.

   Once could forgo televisions in every room and have one television as was the norm 40 years ago.

   One could forgo expensive air-travel vacations and other luxuries that have become common over the recent years and live a simpler slower life.

   One could forgo eating out and spend more time at home eating home-cooked meals made from scratch which would save money over the dollars that families today spend on fast-food and expensive processed foods.

   One could plant a vegetable garden.

   All of these things would allow one to take a position that was a straight 40 hour a week job and live the life that they want to live.

   I’m not being at all sarcastic with the above comments.  There are days when I look around at how people live and ask myself “why”.

   I never see any of my neighbors outside their house relaxing or whatever.  All I see is them flying down the road in a rush in their car.

   Fortunately I haven’t worked more than 40 hours in a week since I graduated from college, but that choice on my part and I know that choice has guided my career path.  I do pretty damn well financially, but I sacrifice even greater incomes because I have many other things that are important to me and working more would take away the very leisure that I enjoy.  The additional money would in essence become meaningless.

   I guess what I’m saying is I think peoples lives are a result of their choices.

   If people wanted a slower simpler life they could have it.  (then again, you’d be the only one sitting out on your front porch relaxing and sipping lemonade while all your neighbors would be flying up and down the street to soccer practice, recitals, networking functions, blah blah blah. )

   Posted by on July 25, 2008 at 0920 hrs




6. About 7.5 in France Bro, the US 5.5, UK 5.3, Germany,Spain, Greece, Portugal, 8.0, Canada and Italy 6.0, Denmark and Norway, 2.0. I believe the highest among NATO nations is Slovakia at 11.0 and the lowest Iceland at 1.0 with 30.0 being the world average. But Burma, Cambodia and Vietnam have lower rates than the U.S. Maybe we should be more like them! As far as working more to earn more, Americans earn 10 thousand pounds more than than the French, yet only work on average 4 hours longer than the French do.

   Posted by on July 25, 2008 at 1057 hrs




7. xxpilot....  AMEN BROTHER!

   I’ve been changing my lifestyle too, I’m tired of being connected 24/7 and trying to cram 80 hours of work into a 40 hour work week with it spilling over into my personal life.

   Wife and I were looking at another Cruise as a vacation, I think I’ve convinced her that a camping trailer would be more fun and more rewarding for our family. 

   My ideal retirement is some mountain top in Alaska with a supply plane drop every 6 months for essentials.  My wife said she would never retire or visit Alaska, and so that just makes it all the more desirable for me

   Posted by on July 25, 2008 at 1109 hrs




8. Great points xxpilot. This is the best part about working for the government. Friends of mine in the private sector work 60-80 hours a week and miss time with their kids; I’m home around 4:45 on most days. I’ll gladly take a little less pay to spend more time at home with my wife and kids instead of killing myself to make sure enough cheap plastic crap rolls off the assembly lines.

   I know all you anti-government types hate it, but a simple cost-benefit analysis makes it a winner for me.

   Posted by on July 25, 2008 at 1423 hrs




9. This just in: France expecting a surplus of wine, cheese in upcoming months.

   Posted by Venomous Kate on July 25, 2008 at 1426 hrs