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Short Workweek May Czech Out [In Frogistan]
A few years ago France decided to give workers a raise by cutting their hours.
How very Phrench. And stupid. Somebody flunked math and economics class.
The government commanded most employers to shorten the workweek from 39 hours to 35 for exactly the same weekly pay.
Idiot socialist wankers.
Many leftists, communists, and idiots (but I repeat myself) folks declared the French brilliant to figure out how to boost wage rates while making employers hire more people and thus lower the unemployment rate. But as everyone with good economic sense predicted, it didn't work out as planned. Employers didn't magically have extra payroll money. Unemployment remained stubbornly high.
[Emphasis added.]
Yet Paris still clings to its dream of more for less, even as reality begins to reassert itself in a Bosch auto-parts factory near Lyon. Workers there recently were given an easy choice: work an extra hour each week without pay, in violation of the 35-hour rule, or the whole plant will pack up and move to the Czech Republic.
Oops.
Ninety-eight percent of the French workers voted to work 36 hours instead of none.
Ya' think? Maybe the average Phroggies aren't so dumb after all.
French President Jacques Chirac insists that the 35-hour law remains in force, even if workers decide they must work longer.
How does that work, exactly? Is the Tooth Fairy involved?
Perhaps the French could repay themselves for having to work an hour more. What about requiring that everyone get a free lunch? Their 35-hour law proves they believe such things exist.
Ouch!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-07-27
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=39093