Balter: “What’s The Matter With (French) Kids Today?”
France may be headed for something that Americans wouldn’t recognize if it bit them in the butt: a good, old-fashioned, government-toppling general strike.
Students and labor unions have united to stare down a new measure that would allow French employers to hire young workers on a conditional two-year basis during which they could be fired without cause.
This, of course, is also a foreign notion to most American workers who have no contract and for the most part can be fired anytime, anyhow, anyway. Even after umpteen years of service. And if they're really lucky, their employer will also strip them of their promised pension and health care bennies. In Europe, fortunately, it ain’t so easy.
Whatever one’s view of the French protests, I think it’s heartening to see people active on issues that really count: like the stability of their livelihood. This is a refreshing change from the American model of protesting just about everything except these core issues. Imagine if the American labor movement could put a million people in the street to oppose, say, outsourcing of middle-class jobs? Or the closures at GM and Ford? Or in favor of a higher minimum wage? Dream on!
We’re lucky to have on board our own exclusive correspondent to report on the French protests. Direct from Paris: veteran journalist and author, long-time pal, and one of our frequent blog commenters, Michael Balter, has prepared this report just for us:
What's the matter with France's young people? Last November, they took to the streets by the thousands, burning cars and schools in protest aginst the chronically high unemployment amongst their ranks. So now the government comes up with a measure to encourage employers to hire more youth, and what do they do? Take to the streets again, this time in the hundreds of thousands.
Well over 1 million students and workers demonstrated against the government's plan on Saturday, including at least 100,000 in Paris. As usual, the mostly peaceful marches turned violent as night fell, when the "casseurs"--people who like to break things--took over and made the French police earn their salaries. The measure in question is the "contrat première embauche" (CPE), loosely translatable as the "first employment contract." Its principal provision is to allow employers to fire anyone under 26 for any reason whatsoever during the first two years after they are hired.
The protesting students, demonstrating that their educations have not been for nothing, have already come up with alternative interpretations of the CPE acronym, including "chomage, précarité, exclusion" ("unemployment, precariousness, exclusion") and "chemin pour l'esclavage" (" road to slavery"). The movement seems unstoppable: Many French unions have joined together to threaten a general strike if the government does not repeal the CPE by Monday. Once again, the conservative government of president Jacques Chirac and prime minister Dominique de Villepin have shown themselves capable of doing something no one on the left has succeeded at in years: Uniting students and workers in one vast movement.
Readers of my comments in this space about last November's riots will recall that I usually approach these situations with mixed feelings. There is little doubt that the government's approach--creating jobs by making it easier for employers to exploit workers--is nothing more than a provocation in a country that prides itself on its social protections. Few people here look with admiration on the American model, in which employers have a nearly free hand in keeping wages, benefits, and employment protection to a minimum not only for young people but for a significant percentage of the nation's workforce. Wal-Mart would have a hard time making it in France, even if some Americans--usually the better off ones--think that workers should be grateful to have jobs at all.
On the other hand, as I have said before, the French model also leaves much to be desired. Certainly, job creation has to involve a lot more than pandering to the capitalist class's natural desire to increase its profits. And here is where the social protections, when interpreted rigidly--and that is exactly how most French unions do interpret them--often stand in the way. The French economy is stagnant and lacking in dynamism, and the unemployment figures--more than 10 percent amongst all workers and an average 22 percent among workers aged 15-24 years--are just one of the most important symptoms of this malaise.
The primary reason is that neither employers nor workers in France are encouraged nor helped to take risks, to make changes, or to invest in new businesses. In this regard, French unions can be counted on to oppose any increase in economic flexibility; rather, the typical union sees its role as protecting the workplace from any and all changes that might help the nation's economy create new jobs as part of a program of economic expansion.
So while the student-worker alliance may stoke revolutionary imaginations right now, in the long run it could turn out to be a loser for France's youth. In the meantime, look for the government to abandon the CPE this coming week, most likely under the guise of suspending it while calling for a "national debate" or "national dialogue." But don't expect the French youth unemployment rates to come down any time soon.
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March 19th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
MC: In Europe, fortunately, it ain’t so easy.
It depends upon your perspective. Unions protect and promote inefficiencies.
From my standpoint, I considered U.S. companies to be somewhat paternalistic up until about 1960, and then labor took antagonistic positions, backed up by Democrats, that destroyed that relationship.
March 19th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
That’s pure hogwash.
March 19th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
Funny, I work with two Brits here in the US. I had to explain to them the notion of at will employees while we were putting together our employment policies. This was all a bit mystifying to them. One of them had worked in Sweden where evidently it is quite difficult to fire someone.
The howler for both of them though is the health care system. They both think it is a great big farce.
It’s an interesting question though. How do you create protections for workers without creating slavish rule following organizations (like most police unions for example who never cut an officer loose no matter how bad he or she is)? But in our ciurrent climate that’s not even a relevant questions since the deck is stacked so entirely against them. I would love to see the day when this was actually a question we had to srtuggle with. I don’t recommend holding your breath.
March 19th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
Good point Danny O, we have to get to the point where there are protections to have some sort of difficulty.
The answer is the same in France as it is in the United States. Capitalism’s corporations have run off to greener fields, the exploitation of the third world – where they can get labor for pennies on the dollar. It is a race to the bottom – why should they re-invest in a place where they have to pay decent wages, provide for health care and so on? The name of the game is profit, and it is much more profitable to rape weak nations.
March 19th, 2006 at 10:36 pm
Or, hey, wouldn’t it be great if American kids protested the fact that the Bush administration is demanding that all environmental reports given to congress and the press be censored, particularly climate reports pertaining to global warming…including the opinions of the best American scientists who believe that we are fast approaching a tipping point, after which the human affect on global warming will be irreversible…..
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/60minutes/main1415985.shtml
Or wouldn’t it also be great if American college kids protested the historic suspension of habeas corpus at Guantanamo….
As This American Life put it: “The right of habeas corpus has been a part of this country’s legal tradition longer than we’ve actually been a country. It means the government has to explain why it’s holding a person in custody. But now, the war on terror has nixed many of the rules we used to think of as fundamental. At Guantanamo Bay, our government initially claimed that the prisoners should not be covered by habeas – or even by the Geneva Conventions – because they’re the most fearsome terrorist enemies we have. But is that true?…â€
http://www.thislife.org/
[Be sure to scroll down one story to “Habeas Shmabeas.†]
Yep, right now there’re a lot of reasons that we and our kids ought to be taking to the streets en masse..
But we don’t.
This is the sort of stuff that keeps me up nights, wondering if by not doing so we are not just failing to uphold our civic and patriotic duty but, in some irrevocable way, becoming the Good Germans….
March 20th, 2006 at 3:42 am
Maybe the problem is a lack of a work ethic. French kids that are hired and do a GOOD job have no worry about being fired.
March 20th, 2006 at 4:21 am
“Maybe the problem is a lack of a work ethic. French kids that are hired and do a GOOD job have no worry about being fired.”
This ignorant statement is very similar to the type of offering that Woody gave us up top. GM Roper obviously has no data to back up this assertion, but feels free to give us a demonstration of the kind of mindless blathering that all too often passes for political discussion in the blogosphere. We are talking about real issues in the real word here, not simply polishing up our political prejudices, at least I hope not. That is why I tried to give both sides of the picture here in France, a country I live in and actually have first hand knowledge about
March 20th, 2006 at 4:44 am
“lucky”
Aren’t we though?
“…France’s young people?”
Anyone who was paying attention last Fall, and also now, knows that one big problem is that many of “France’s young people” are not French at all. In fact, they are, or are recently descended from, third world Muslim and African immigrants, and as a group they are having (surprise!) a very difficult time competing academically and economically in first world France. Regarding unemployment among “French youth”, a French minister put it succinctly last Fall: If you have no qualifications, you are not going to get hired.’
Reasonalbe people can differ on the value of France’s employment law; although cause and effect can be difficult to demonstrate, it is not unfair to point out that 1) the government really has no business telling a private enterprise how long it has to keep an employee on, and 2) the US has no such laws and unemployment among the same age group is less than half what it is in France.
“demonstrating that their educations have not been for nothing”
Oh really? Interestingly, in a recent survey, 76% of those in this age group who were asked said they wanted to become…a government bureaucrat. Doubtless due to the even more expansive (i.e. absurd) employment protections and generous pensions. Ponder that. So is it really true that these (often violent) protests over de Villepin’s simple proposed change show anything other than a self-interest derived from a completely unrealistic view of economic reality and wealth generation?
March 20th, 2006 at 6:51 am
I’m glad to be lumped in with G.M. Great minds think alike.
For anyone who wants total job security or hates capitalism, don’t take a job with any company which doesn’t meet your lofty standards. Go start your own business or, like most non-producers, go work for the government–or join a union, or sit back and let others support you. Liberals work hard to not work.
G.M. is correct. Job security starts with doing a good job. You have to be able to pay for yourself and create a return for those who are risking investments. Otherwise, you’re not needed and should be let go.
Michael Balter, you fall into the same league as other liberals who criticize conservatives for not providing adequate documentation for conclusions. Liberals make such demands in great part to avoid considering opposing ideas, and they consider statements that support conservative ideas to be not acceptable. We can’t win. No documentation that we present would be acceptable to a liberal who considers himself as being righteously correct (most of them), and anything that discredits them is unacceptable. Liberals will attack conservative writers on the personal level to avoid dealing with realities of which they write. It does no good to provide links to sources which you will reject simply based on the titles of the articles or the names of the writers. It’s a common dodge–and a cowardly dodge.
Anyway, I had the courtesy of reading what you wrote. I can agree with your statement: “…the typical union sees its role as protecting the workplace from any and all changes that might help the nation’s economy create new jobs as part of a program of economic expansion.” Start cleaning your own house before you criticize your neighbor’s.
March 20th, 2006 at 7:05 am
rosedog, what’s wrong with young people protesting in this country, particularly on the issues that you raise, is that most young people are plain stupid and easily led to be rebellious–a bad combination. If I want some advice, I’ll take it from someone with gray hair who has lived life rather than some snot-nosed kid who thinks he knows everything.
One article that you linked had to define habeas corpus for its readers, who are suddenly outraged that this right for U.S. citizens might be violated for combantants against us. Two minutes earlier they didn’t even know what the term meant or that it even existed. You want to follow or praise them?!
P.S. I’m not providing support for my statements, as they are so self-evident.
March 20th, 2006 at 7:57 am
That’s wonderful, now no one on the political right has to back up any statement they make because they are just falling into some liberal trap! That is fine with me, you won’t convince anyone that way so no harm done. But nice to see your thinking processes or lack of same exposed for all to see.
March 20th, 2006 at 8:44 am
Very interesting topic. I’m sure we all share a gernalized goal of working a little less in an atmosphere of lowered desperation.
I don’t believe the observation that perhaps the French youth lack a work ethic deserved the you gave it, Michael Balter. Obviously it’s a generalization, but it kinda the core conservative argument on the gradual effect of ever-increasing social guarantees; and it’s an observation you come close to making in the entry we’re talking about when you say they are averse to taking risks (as is the French economy in general). That is not unrelated at all.
Anyway, my question for a while has been: the conservative view of the pernicious effects of welfare and guarantees has both a lot of inherent plausibility and some pretty good evidence behind it. Commentators often say, about the more-socialist-ish European approach providing lifetime employment and health care and 6 weeks of vacation and all, that it simply cannot withstand the pressures of the global economy.
But is the hyper-competitive global economy – as they accurately describe, it must be acknowledged – a given? Is it actually mainly a result of a few countries deciding to approach it that way, with the US at the head? If the US changed its tune on these things, would that open up the economic space for everyone just to relax a little, which is a very worthwhile political goal?
Or would the presence of say China and the other very competitive Asian nations, and India, etc., mean that we’d simply be joining Europe in acceding too much economic vitality and power to other places?
(By the way, is “yes, we want life to be easier that you say it needs to be” the underreported – here – explicit political stance of the demonnstrators? Is there an explciit rejection of competitiveness in here?
March 20th, 2006 at 8:54 am
What is the current process required before an employer can fire somebody in France?
I wonder if the answer is more employee protections or a greater social effort to treat the unemployed like real people in search of work, not just lazy, untalented slobs.
March 20th, 2006 at 8:55 am
Tee hee. As I a scientist I can be a lumper too, but sometimes a splitter. Not in this case, it’s the former as Michael correctly applies the principal. They can’t be fixed, old dogs and all that.
Rosedog I’m the guy who woke James Hansen up and told him to fight back against the smears and lies of Steven Milloy on FOX. He said he didn’t have time to respond to every sceptic, but had responded to that particular lie before. He had, but he’s got time to fight back now against this pack of lying crooks he works for. Did you see that NASA minder in the corner? How Soviet is that?
Left and right wingnut tag teams make for good Kabuki theatre but have little to do with truth. “Truth knocks on the door, and you say go away, I’m looking for the truth. Puzzling.”
Pirsig
March 20th, 2006 at 9:08 am
“or sit back and let others support you. Liberals work hard to not work.”
Really. How does this work? What income stream is it you refer to oh great wise one? It’s a mythological one, and thus has no source just like most of Woody’s wingers. When you have a false belief none are needed. Around here a permanant government job is tough to get. I know I’ve tried for 20 years and still work temporary with no benefits, so walk in my shoes a while, fool. Your slams are sickening in the breathtaking scope of your ignorance.
And did I mention the pay is low? No matter, we do it for public service. Even if the public are as stupid as this critic is. This is one former union carpenter that would crack you up side your fat head with a union hammer, not that rubber mallet of Tom Delay. Take a look at the skyline of Atlanta. It wasn’t built by scabs with illegal help.
March 20th, 2006 at 9:16 am
Michael, the right can back up statements to people who are open minded. Liberals are so sure of themselves (as I’m so sure that they are wrong), that they remain closed minded and unaccepting of our support.
And, what proof is offered by linking a post of someone who is just another person? Do you think that someone has to work for the “NY Times” to understand a situation and to think logically? At least I’m honest, and that gives me a leg up over their reporters.
The real situation is that the left avoids debate and seeks comfort from associating only with their friends–not that the right can’t support our positions. I’m just not stupid enough to waste my time trying to convince someone against his will.
Now, for the open minded, here’s a link for another take on the French students and their jobs: http://boortz.com/nuze/200603/03202006.html#panier However, if you’re from the left, don’t read it, as I’m sure that the writer is not qualified since he doesn’t agree with you.
March 20th, 2006 at 9:35 am
“remain closed minded and unaccepting of our support”
With support like Woody’s we don’t need…etc…etc….
I DID enjoy the picture of that can of “10 Dogs Penis Soup” on Boortz’ website. Really…
But enough about dog penises – in fact Boortz’ views on economics and social sloth are pretty sophisticated as demonstrated in this clip from his radio show:
Now, the Daily News in New York has a headline: “Rich got terror tip.” Rich got terror tip. OK, let’s get logical about this, folks. Let’s play logic with this. This is as it should be. OK? If we are faced with disaster in this country — let me ask you this, OK? You just be logical. Get all of the emotion out of this. Get all of the emotion out of this. But if we are faced with a disaster in this country, which group do we want to save? The rich or the poor? Now, if you have time, save as many people as you can. But if you have to set some priorities, where do you go? The rich or the poor? OK? Who is a drag on society? The rich or the poor? Who provide the jobs out there? The rich or the poor? Who fuels — you know, which group fuels our economy? Drives industry? The rich or the poor? Now if you — all of a sudden, somebody walks up to you and says, “Hey, Boortz listener. You’re gonna have a — you have to make a choice. You’re going to — we’re gonna move you to another country. And you’re just gonna have to make your way in this other country. We have a choice of two countries for you. In this country, people achieve a lot and they are wealthy because of their hard work. In this country, people don’t achieve squat. They sit around all the time waiting for somebody else to take care of them. They have children they can’t afford. They’re uneducated. They can barely read. And the high point of their day is Entertainment Tonight on TV. Which country do you want to live in? The country of the high achievers, or the country of sheep, the country of followers?” You know what you’re gonna do. I don’t see what the big problem is. I just don’t. I mean, if you — who do I want to save first? The rich. Save the poor first. Then, when everything’s over, where are you gonna go for a job? OK, hey, if I get a tin cup, can I sit next to you and sell pencils too? “
March 20th, 2006 at 9:35 am
“Now, for the open minded, here’s a link for another take on the French students and their jobs: http://boortz.com/nuze/200603/03202006.html#panier However, if you’re from the left, don’t read it, as I’m sure that the writer is not qualified since he doesn’t agree with you.”
The writer is indeed unqualified, not because he disagrees with me, but because there are serious factual errors in every paragraph of his post. But of course, you did not verify what he said before you kindly provided us with this link, you provided it because you agreed with it despite your ignorance of the situation in France. That is the kind of mindless blather I am talking about, and it is taking this blog down to ever lower levels.
March 20th, 2006 at 9:38 am
Not that this administration would ever let anything like the scenario Boortz advocates actually happen…
March 20th, 2006 at 9:41 am
More Boortz: “There is a full-scale attack against all things Christian in this country…”
Yeah. Uh. Well I guess he should know.
March 20th, 2006 at 9:44 am
Mavis asked:
“What is the current process required before an employer can fire somebody in France?”
Here a question from someone who is actually interested in facts. The answer depends on whether you have a short-term work contract (called a CDD, contrat duration determine) or a permanent contract (CDI, contrat duration indetermine.) A CDD is binding for the time it lasts, typically one year at a time, and then can be terminated with no reason given. A CDI is what most people who want job protection seek. Even under a CDI people can be fired for cause: If the employee challenges the firing, it goes to a tribunal which decides, and there are many levels of appeal that can go on for years. In other words, it is not true that French employers cannot fire incompetent employees, although it is true that it is not easy for them to do, and certainly not easy to do for economic reasons rather than real cause. In that regard French workers do have much more job protection than American workers once they obtain a CDI.
I should also add that contrary to statements by some ignorant bloggers above, most people employed in France work very hard and for much lower pay than in the United States for the same job.
March 20th, 2006 at 9:49 am
You can not deny that Europe has much stronger Unions. You can not deny that Europe has much higher unemployment.
You can try to argue there is no connection between the two but you have a very difficult case to make.
Unions should be protecting employees from unjust firings ie. reprisals for whistle blowing on corrupt, illegal, dangerous company policies, firings based on religion, race, etc.
Unions should also definitely help employees negotiate wages and pensions, insurance etc.
But unions have become their own monsters demanding no employee be fired ever. They defend incompetent and theiving employees regularly.
Unions try to fight automation that eliminates union workers. They fail to see this creates new higher paying jobs for those workers (yes often outside of the union). But the Unions job too often is to feed itself not look out for the best interest of its workers.
They attempt to negotiate wages and benefits that bankrupt companies.
The auto unions are a perfect example Ford and GM are laying people off while Toyota and Honda are building new non union factories in the US.
anyone have a comparison of the salaries and benefits?
The unions are not solely to blame but the Ford and GM deserve much of it but the UAW most certainly contributed to their current troubles.
I will take 4.8% unemployment and a non union job to 23% unemployment and a job for life for those lucky enough to find one whos taxes have to be raised to pay for the 23% who are out of work.
Eventually the productive worker sees little point in working to pay for everyone else on the dole. It is a death spiral.
The EU is in that spiral now and every attempt to stop the bleeding is blocked by unions.
March 20th, 2006 at 9:54 am
most people employed in France work very hard and for much lower pay than in the United States for the same job.
and we should follow them why?
March 20th, 2006 at 10:02 am
“and we should follow them why?”
You know, I am not sure who this remark is directed at. I wrote a short piece for this blog explaining what was going on in France, why, and pointing out that while the American model had lots of problems so did the French model. This is what would be called a nuanced approach in most places where people actually try to think about the issues, no matter what their politics. The response to this from a number of commentators is to brag about how conservatives are better than liberals as if we were at a high school football game rooting for one side or the other rather than having a discussion. This might not be quite so bad were it not accompanied by a long list of ignorant statements by people who do not have the slightest idea what they are talking about. I continue to hammer on this because I always have hopes when I visit this blog that the discussion will rise to a higher level.
March 20th, 2006 at 10:12 am
Michael B:
I thought I asked a fairly decent question above about the larger political theories at play in France. I was serious about it. Any thoughts on it?
March 20th, 2006 at 10:19 am
reg, you attack the person and cherry pick information on them to discredit valid other points with which you disagree. Address Boortz’s statements rather than bring in unrelated issues. If your method is appropriate, it will be very easy to find absolutely stupid comments from your liberal heroes and to discredit them and deny you any courtesy of introducing their ideas.
—–
Michael Balter, you weren’t supposed to read that article. I warned you. But, you illustrate my point about liberals not accepting documentation from conservatives. BTW, Boortz is a Libertarian–conservative on economic matters and liberal on personal rights. For instance, he believes that drugs should be legalized (which I don’t), but that doesn’t keep me from giving thought and value to his ideas.
What were his “serious factual errors in every paragraph of his post?” Were these “factual errors” of substance–enough to discredit his ideas, or were they incidental and misused by you to avoid considering his views and dodging the discussion? Please be specific.
Of course, I didn’t verify Boortz’s entire entry before presenting it. However, your assumption about my reason is wrong and undocumented. Since you are guilty of this false assumption and omission, then should you quit commenting to avoid “taking this blog down to ever lower levels?” Really. As I said before, clean up your own house before criticizing another.
Back to Boortz…if I backed up his entry with support from another source, you would ask if I checked out that other source and so on ad nauseum. Isn’t it the writer, rather than the reader, who is to provide support that he considers necessary? Since ideas were the main subject, was there really any need for further documentation? For me, I know enough about Boortz that I can put more faith in his writings than in quotes from Democrats.
Did Marc Cooper verify everything that you said or just introduce it for discussion?
Marc, I’m demanding support for everything that you posted from Michael Balter. Can you prove that he is actually in Paris, or should I just assume that it doesn’t matter (it doesn’t.)
Were the French on strike when the Germans invaded? We need answers.
March 20th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Michael…your post is appreciated. Helped unravel a confusing issue – even for those of us who follow the news closely. I always have my doubts that food fights in the comments section – and god knows I’m a veteran of quite a few – reflect much of anything so far as the general readership is concerned.
One thing I’m always amazed by – and this is purely impressionistic – is how demonstrations in France over issues related to what we would call the “middle classes” seem to routinely amp up into violent confrontation. The French farmers have always fascinated me in this regard. Americans have a reputation for being unhinged when it comes to acts of violence, but it would seem that excepting a handful of compounds out in the wilderness we’re pretty much wusses compared to the French when it comes to confronting authority. Maybe it’s that steady diet of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson movies that the French intelligentsia consumed so earnestly.
March 20th, 2006 at 10:32 am
Cuz see, lacking a larger and serious political framework, the protests do seem kind of silly, rathger grounded in a refusal to accept that life can be hard.
And of course this refusal leads to life being even harder for a growing number of people: the unemployed, and everyone depending on a colelctive largesse that does seme to be increasinigly based in a financial quicksand.
You yourself seem to see this, michael B., while hesitant to come out and speak of the larger implications.
March 20th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Woody and GM just represent the morally vacuous position that see workers, i.e. people, as just another input like oil or paper. Of course if your bottom line suffers in any way you reduce the amount of oil you buy and you lay-off many thousands of employees. Morally, to them, it’s the same thing. But it gets better because it’s not just the right thing to do, it’s what the holy MARKET says to do therefore it is rational and good. QED.
Surely this raises a whole host of questions about the role of the corporation in the community and in the world. And it’s a complicated question with lots of thorny issues not helped much by saying things like liberals don’t like to work, the young are stupid, the French are lazy and so on.
Woody, where is the vaunted US economy that you speak so glowingly of in contrast to the Europeans? I grant we have the world’s largest and in some wasy most vibrant economy, but there are troubling signs. Boeing is losing market share to Airbus, Ford is in dire shape, GM is about to become smaller than Toyota, we largely don’t make steel here anymore, the apparel industry has essentially moved overseas. Job growth is often in low-wage service jobs that can’t support a middle class life for families, and this will have serious political implications if it continues.
None of the above is to suggest that a company needs to retain workers if they are genuinely going to go out of business for example, but you two advocate this sort of Hobbesian capitalism where anything is fair game as long as it increases profit. That’s the conservative trap Woody: The market did it, thus it is good. Speaking of cowardly dodges.
March 20th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Paul, sorry to let your comment slide, although you made several interesting points including the question of whether everyone should try to keep up with the US. But I assume the one you most want responded to is this:
“I don’t believe the observation that perhaps the French youth lack a work ethic deserved the you gave it, Michael Balter. Obviously it’s a generalization, but it kinda the core conservative argument on the gradual effect of ever-increasing social guarantees; and it’s an observation you come close to making in the entry we’re talking about when you say they are averse to taking risks (as is the French economy in general). That is not unrelated at all.”
Most of my impressions of youth attitudes in France are based on knowing or having met hundreds of young people in my 17 years here, bolstered by those sociological studies I have seen reported in the French press. That leads me to conclude that young people here are not looking for some soft, cushy job nor expecting such. They start off like young people anywhere, full of hope and eager to make some sort of career and lives for themselves. The militancy you see in these demonstrations is in large part frustration and hopelessness at being able to do that, to live meaningly as we would all like to live, rather than being sore about being deprived of the benefits of a welfare state. This is what irks me so much about some of the comments here, they are based so little on reality or knowledge of the situation and so much on preconceived partisan politics.
As for taking risks, you have to distinguish between the organization of the economy–which discourages risk-taking–and the ultimate willingness of young people to take risks. If risks paid off, as they sometimes do in more dynamic societies like the US, then more people would be willing to take them.
And yes, you heard me right: American society, despite all its precariousness and injustices, is more dynamic than any European society I know and I know most of them. Dynamic economically, culturally, and socially, despite the illusions of some of my friends who tell me they want to come live in France as a way of escaping their disillusionment with the USA.
What we should be seeking is a model that takes the best of both worlds, but for Americans that would mean accepting that America is not the most perfect world either.
March 20th, 2006 at 10:41 am
“But … New Orleans did have somewhat of a French culture, didn’t it?”
Yeah anyone who sputn this sort reasoned conclusion reall is an “expert.”
Here’s your sign.
March 20th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Woody…the people you link to are such easy targets, I can’t help myself. As for their arguments – like the piece by Ralph Peters – they’re so obviously trading in unsubstantiated opinion or dubious assertion, there’s really not much there to take down. Boortz’ piece read like a longer, more detailed version of your original post. It was opinion – no more, no less. Boortz may be turn out to right about some of his arguments but my confidence level in his probable accuracy is about the same as a stopped clock since he’s obviously an extreme ideologue.
Also, I did post information that countered Peters specifically on the piece you linked to.
And I really did like the dog penis thing…
March 20th, 2006 at 10:48 am
Dan O, unions are killing American businesses and have done so for decades. People in other countries know their worth and are willing to take less money for the same jobs. Only government protectionism can save labor intensive manufacturing jobs from going elsewhere. You would think that the French would have learned this lesson–or, maybe they did with their “jobs for life” programs.
BTW, I wasn’t the one that changed the name of the Personnel Department to Human Resouces. That makes it sound as if people are just another resource like raw materials.
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Michael Balter, if you’re through taking shots at me, I’ll quit taking up space to defend myself–allowing the comment section to focus more on the points.
March 20th, 2006 at 10:48 am
“you would ask if I checked out that other source”
Yes. It’s called journalism, which is why Woody and Roper aren’t journalists and Balter is to put a finer point on it. All wingnut opinion pieces have in common is the same mistakes, prjudices and distortions, passed on as dogma. It quickly becomes a meme and thus defensible for believers. Anyone who doesn’t believe it is a heretic from the other side. Heard it all before.
March 20th, 2006 at 10:55 am
“unions are killing American businesses”
This is an age old wingnut assertion and stems from a unions and communisim linkage. Tell me how my union Carpenters & Joiners of America has killed Bechtel (who I worked for) and Kellogg Brown and Root? Yes their employees in Iraq are union.
I’m afraid your opinion just is not lined up with the facts. This is of no concern to those with prejudice.
March 20th, 2006 at 10:58 am
BTW….just to second reg’s praise….A heartfelt thanks to Michael B.—-and to Marc for bugging him to post here—for giving such a smart, interesting, nuanced run down on the situation for the rest of us.
March 20th, 2006 at 10:59 am
“What we should be seeking is a model that takes the best of both worlds, but for Americans that would mean accepting that America is not the most perfect world either.”
Some of the best ideas are hybrids. Anyone living here can see just how imperfect it can be. The whole place is run like a game show.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:04 am
“American society, despite all its precariousness and injustices, is more dynamic than any European society I know and I know most of them. Dynamic economically, culturally, and socially, despite the illusions of some of my friends who tell me they want to come live in France as a way of escaping their disillusionment with the USA.”
Thank you!
Personally, I think liberals who fetishize Europe as some higher level of civilization are nuts. Europe is what it is. I’ve been reading a lot of Thomas Paine and Paine bios in recent weeks, so maybe I’m blindered by American idealism at the moment, but Europe – for all of the obvious charms, lovely people and vast, historic cultural wealth – strikes me as fraught with problems and stagnant in a dozen different ways. I remember traveling as a very leftist American in England in ’68 and being absolutely nauseated by the shallow, knee-jerk attitudes that were common regarding the U.S. It struck me as a variant on utterly bourgeios conservatism for the most part. (I’m talking about average folks, not the silly Trotskyists, etc. that were rampant in England at the time.) Guess I had to leave it to realize how much I loved it.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:08 am
“Imagine if the American labor movement could put a million people in the street to oppose, say, outsourcing of middle-class jobs? Or the closures at GM and Ford? Or in favor of a higher minimum wage?…”
two words: LUD LOW
March 20th, 2006 at 11:14 am
Thanks.
I also am interested in your thoughts on the other political issues, the notion that it’s largely becaue of the US that we have such a hyper-competitive economy worldwide, and that if we could calm down everybody else could too. Is that a strain of thinking that shows up in france? Or is this just my idea, and I should go get a PhD and stake a career on it?
March 20th, 2006 at 11:15 am
One of the reasons that the French are so risk averse in business is that expertise and experience are so often conflated. Promotion is based on longevity more often than on merit or imagination. This tends to produce survivors who haven’t rocked the boat during their career. Sociologically there may be a good reason for this but it is stifling.
On this note it will be interesting to see if the most popular Socialist politician, Ségolène Royal, a woman, breaks through the cue of staid male career politicians. This could be revolutionary in a country that invented the idea.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:19 am
I don’t know that unions are killing businesses so much as they kill human progression in a lot of instances. The auto unions share much of the blame, for example, for the fact that we don’t have alternative sources of fuel and fuel efficiency standards. One union guy I talked to who is from Detroit told me, “We love the SUV.” Furthermore, as has been reported in Mother Jones quite recently (as well as perhaps other periodicals that I have not been paying attention to), both prison construction and defense spending are both heavily pushed by unions. Interestingly enough, police officers unions overwhelmingly support medical-based treatment (instead of prison..) for people convicted of small time drug possession; however, since prison construction has become a growth industry, other union organizations whose members and money are tied to such construction continue to press for prison instead of treatment.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:23 am
Paul says:
“I also am interested in your thoughts on the other political issues, the notion that it’s largely becaue of the US that we have such a hyper-competitive economy worldwide, and that if we could calm down everybody else could too. Is that a strain of thinking that shows up in france? Or is this just my idea, and I should go get a PhD and stake a career on it?”
The main complaint you hear from French people is not that the US is hyper-competitive–American dynamism is admired among many here–but that the US attempts to dominate the world politically and economically, which is not the same as merely competing and let the best product win. When the playing field is fairly level, eg with Airbus vs Boeing where both sides are subsidizing overtly or covertly, both sides win some and lose some. European airlines buy Boeings and American airlines buy Airbuses sometimes.
What the French cannot understand is the American work ethic which leaves so little room for leisure and just plain living. The five-week vacation mandated by law in France and many other European countries is seen as something that makes life worth living here, and well worth any decrease in productivity–as if productivity were the reason for living! In fact, I would guess–don’t have the facts to hand and don’t claim to–that having to work all year long for only 2-3 weeks of vacation, if that, lowers productivity by lowering morale and increasing exhaustion. And don’t forget that the well-off in American have plenty of leisure time, so limited vacations are prescribed only for the poor and middle class.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:24 am
David Cummings –
Fascinating points.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:27 am
“This could be revolutionary in a country that invented the idea.”
Excuse me…
We “invented the idea” (revolution) and they followed suit – managing to botch the job rather dramatically IMHO. And for good measure, the classic rejoinder to Burke’s critique of the French Revolution was penned by an American – Paine’s “Rights of Man”.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:43 am
York…heck no, I’m not a journalist. I make no pretenses, nor does G.M. (the blogger, not the auto mfg.) However, I do know something about unions, which is part of this topic and which you should know by now, because of my family’s involvement in and academic research on the subject.
Early unions were concerned about safety in the workplace. Later, union leaders evolved to basically acting as capitalists themselves and bargaining or brokering workers to industry at inflated rates. Businesses had their hands tied by Roosevelt’s laws and had to pay. As we have seen, it was “go out of business then with no workers” or “go out of business later with overpaid workers.”
Can you see no businesses that unions killed? Take a look at our steel industry for starters. What about textiles? Then, compare the wages and benefits of American auto workers to Asian workers.
Union workers share the same character failings as businessmen–both are human and both are greedy.
In France, which is our topic country, it appears that politicians were willing to give workers whatever they wanted in exchange for their votes–despite the negative economic consequences. Our politicians do it too, as evidenced by giving in to job killing minimum wage increases.
We should look at France and decide to not follow them down the same road. We should also be smart enough not to allow a bunch of students to threaten us with riots if they don’t get their way. They have graduated from college. Now, let them graduate from the school of the real world and hard knocks.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:47 am
By the way, I was just telling my 15 year old daughter, who is in the French school system, that some Americans think French youth are lazy and don’t want to work hard. She told me to let them know that she starts her school day at 8 am most mornings, and ends at either 5 pm or 6 pm except for Weds which is usually a half day. She has about two hours of homework every evening, and spends most of Sunday doing homework too. This might explain why French youth would like a little job security when they finally get into the job market.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:51 am
“We should also be smart enough not to allow a bunch of students to threaten us with riots if they don’t get their way.”
The latest opinion polls here show that 68% of the French public supports the students. Facts, Woody, facts. French society has social protections because the French want it that way; or should someone else be telling them what kind of society they should have?
March 20th, 2006 at 11:56 am
Unions were and still are a resonse to worker exploitation. Now there are degrees of this as with everything. You can blame union representation for bringing down these businesses, but in fact it is the business itself that did that by doing what they ususally and historically did: find a new wave of slave-like labor. That’s clearly a business decsion and anti-worker. Pay now or later is irrelevant. Your family’s prejudices against labor have nothing to do with the issue other than to plant yet another false cause fallacy on the map. The fact of the matter is there is no plant that can exploit labor in this way by law. And that is why you and your people support outsourcing. It’s a tired and true tactic, It’s just now they can’t do it here as well. Except at Wall-Mart and retailers where the products are sold back to us.
You have an opinion, but no experience working in a union and out of one in the same business. Or any business, since office calculators aren’t unionized type of work.
March 20th, 2006 at 12:04 pm
Getting three weeks off in Bush’s America is no problem. Getting them paid while being employed sure is.
March 20th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
“Can you see no businesses that unions killed? Take a look at our steel industry for starters”
Woody, you obviously don’t know a damned thing about the steel industry or why it declined in America. The major reason our steel industry was “killed” was very poor management and inattention to reinvestment and modernization when the industry was still very profitable.
March 20th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Its interesting that workers are being accused of being lazy. The U.S. system is too forgiving to incompetent managers, of which there are plenty. If you can’t dump your workers easily, your planning and managementn has to be better. My guess is that employee development gets more emphasis also.
March 20th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
We “invented the idea†(revolution) and they followed suit
Fair enough and red faced I am too. But you can say that, for the French, the spirit of their revolution has in many ways more staying power. This is especially true with regard to the hard-earned rights of the working class. We on the other hand are much too forgiving of the excesses of the upper class.
March 20th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
“or the French, the spirit of their revolution has in many ways more staying power”
Or not….
One word: Napoleon.
(Not trying to pick on you Mark – just always a bit dubious of idealizing the politics of Europe. But you’re for sure correct in the recognition that in the 20th century, social democracy gained much more of a foothold in countries like France. On the other hand, it’s possible to be prosecuted in a number of those countries for writing unpopular opinions in a book – i.e. Oriana Fallaci faces trial in Italy for attacking Islam. No other country in the world that I’m aware of has anything codified quite like our Bill of Rights. Of course, we’ve had to fight like hell to make them worth the paper they’re printed on and – obviously – still do.
March 20th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
reg, I have breathed so much smoke from open hearth furnaces, that I feel as steel is in my blood. Yes, I blame U.S. business to a great extent for not moderizing. But, keep in mind, that we were operating mills that were built in the ’40s for the war. Ours were not bombed. Japan’s mills had to be rebuilt and they used later technology (basic oxygen) as they had that chance. That gave them one advantage. Also, foreign countries used protectionist policies against us. However, on the labor side, Japanese workers produced more for lower wages and fewer benefits, and our unions kept us from meeting their challenge. Bethlehem Steel is an interesting study, and I would suggest that you google them and see some of the interesting books and articles on the company’s bankruptcy. (Also, LTV.)
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Michael Balter, you sound like Jimmy Carter who said that he was talking to his daughter Amy about nuclear proliferation. I have a fifteen year old son and, even though he makes straight A’s, I don’t intend to use him as a factual source for material in my comments. But, why don’t you share with your daughter that JUST working hard doesn’t guarantee a job (and shouldn’t.) I know a lot of people who work hard and don’t accomplish much. Anyway, she sounds as if she will do fine and tell her that I don’t think that she is lazy. I value and recognize individual achievement.
The French can support the students and believe what they want. However, their snooty attitudes toward Americans are hardly earned, and we will always do better than the French–partly because we value individual achievement and reward risk taking more.
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York, I had family in a union–until they worked their way up and out by doing more than expected rather than only what was expected. I’m not anti-union. I’m against the power and abuses and corruption that I witnessed from them.
March 20th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
I’m not idealizing Europe, just pointing out that their revolution was fueled in large part by the poverty of the masses. It was mostly the landed gentry who started ours. The difference I believe is a class consciousness that we don’t like to include in our political discourse. When we think of rights we think of freedom of expression, religion, etc., not economic rights. Most French, to this day, are put off by strikes, but support the position of pretty much any aggrieved group of workers.
March 20th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Good points Mark.
Woody, for reasons I won’t go into, I’m also very familiar with the trajectory of the American steel industry, the fact that Europe and Japan rebuilt modern mills, etc. Of course, any American manager worth his salt would also know what that mean in terms of relative productivity and get off their duff. If you knew the complex of issues you mentioned above, why would you make such a half-assed statment claiming unions killed the industry.
March 20th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Sorry…”Marc” not “Mark”.
March 20th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
And Woody, this nuanced understanding of why the steel industry has problems belies your cartoonish claims about unions, workers, and the beloved market. But then sometimes I forget that you just like to jerk our chains.
March 20th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Incidentally, Woody. You’re right that Bethlehem Steel is an interesting study. Check out “Making Steel: Sparrows Point and the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might” for a comprehensive look at what happened. You’re “It’s the unions that killed the steel industry” doesn’t hold up to any serious scrutiny.
March 20th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
It’s odd how only the union can be corrupt but business leadership is pure as the driven snow. Your family worked their way up and out? Somehow I don’t think that translates into ascended to the highest ranks and then took over the company. If they did it didn’t go well. Just left is more like it. No one has to stay in anything. I sure didn’t. Some trades have to be abandoned with age plateaus.
March 20th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
I can’t help myself…
Woody: “What about textiles? … Union workers share the same character failings as businessmen–both are human and both are greedy.”
Yeah, garment workers in the U.S. are notorious for having lived high on the hog like those greedy businessmen. I mean, 60 hour weeks, piece work at subminimum wages, incomes at about 3/4 the poverty level are killing the industry. We need people with a stronger work ethic to successfully compete with those Hondurans making $3 a day.
March 20th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
reg, I saw more links adding the unions to the blame picture than seeing them omitted. Probably one of the fairest representations is in a book that popped up called, “Crisis in Bethlehem: Big Steel’s Battle to Survive.” Here is an Amazon review of it.
From Library Journal—-Pulitzer Prize winner Strohmeyer was editor of the newspaper in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, for 28 years, a period of decline for American steel. In his analysis, when new technology and competitors came on the scene, a complacent steel industry and its unions ignored ominous signs. The industry failed to adopt new technology on time, allowed management ranks and perquisites to grow too fat. Unions won rigid work rules as well as high pay. He witnessed cost-cutting measures that came too late, and the suffering of managers, workers, and communities due to layoffs and plant shutdowns. The book is thoughtful, fair, and highly readable, though not definitive. His documentation of the self-indulgence common a decade ago at top levels of big industry is fascinating, but his case against union “rigidity” is less documented. Frieda Shoenberg Rozen, Labor Studies, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, Pa.
One thing that I remember is that Bethlehem had promised medical benefits for life to its workers, and when the company went under, so did those benefits–leaving a lot of former union members wondering what happened. Just to keep things moving, managment made promises in the ’60s that wouldn’t have to be paid until down the road. They finally got “down the road,” sort of like what’s going to happen to social security.
What’s the French steel industry like?
March 20th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
Hmmm, can Hondurons do tax returns for me?
March 20th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
http://www.makingsteel.com/whoishe.html
This is counter imperialism I suppose.
March 20th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
Sorry for the repetitive posts to answer follow-ups.
York, my family didn’t own U.S. Steel, but my grandfather had 12,-13,000 miners under him when he retired. That’s what learning to read and write will do. Try it.
March 20th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
“promised medical benefits for life” Oh the horror of it. That’s what pensions and benefits mean. Of course for a union you get vested and this guanatees a certain level of benefit. If companies go out of business as a collective it’s a separate matter. That’s the market as they say. Movie companies and construction companies fail all the time. The benefits of such unions are portable.
March 20th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
“sort of like what’s going to happen to social security”
I don’t know how to tell you this Woody, but social security is solvent so far into the future – more likely 90 years than the 40 or so generally batted around – that you could spend your time worrying much more fruitfully on the question of exploding health care costs. (Or the exploding deficits that will be generated by Bush’s irrational tax cuts if they’re kept in place.) Of course, the only rational solution to the impending health care/cost crisis is single payer national insurance – like France. The U.S. government already spends as much or more per capita on health care as the French government – which doesn’t include the money spent privately – with far worse results and far less complete coverage. France has an infant mortality rate which is better by 35% than the U.S. with life expectancies better by 2.2%, at a cost of just 50% what we pay – public and private – per capita.
This is a discussion you really don’t want to open up. You can’t win it against anyone who isn’t as brainwashed and oblivioius to reality as you are.
March 20th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
Alas reading and writing won’t do that now. It takes more than being the only semi-literate man in the crowd. Of course there’s been no abuse in coal mining as we’ve seen. There was more then. Much more so being the straw boss of that legacy explains your views now.
March 20th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
Also Woody, our lack of national health insurance is a major negative when assessing the problems and competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers compared to other industrialized countries. The recent loss of a major auto plant to Canada was because of the burden of providing private health insurance to U.S. auto workers. Of course, if they weren’t as selfish and greedy as the capitalists, they could do without it. After all, as Neal Boortz would argue, why would we want to provide medical benefits to people who don’t create jobs. In fact, doctors should take an oath that they will save the life of a job-creating entrepeneur before they offer assistance to an easily replaceable, hopelessly dependent proletarian.
March 20th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
Even when putting aside the fact that social security surpluses have been dipped into by the grubby hands of policy makers in Washington, Woody, social security has been a success. The private system in Chile that was raved about every night on the network weekly news programs? Ask any average Chilean what they think of it now.
To the extent that there is any kind of “insolvency” in social security, Woody, will not arrive until well down the road – several decades from now. Personally, I have always felt that one thing that we need to do is to readjust the consumer price index (CPI) to reflect consumer realities. When beef is expensive, people buy chicken or pork. The CPI does not reflect this, and so it is an outliered mess. But privatization? That should be a non-starter. Just ask those aforementioned South Americans – they will tell you.
March 20th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
Mark, about your last graf:
“So while the student-worker alliance may stoke revolutionary imaginations right now, in the long run it could turn out to be a loser for France’s youth. In the meantime, look for the government to abandon the CPE this coming week, most likely under the guise of suspending it while calling for a “national debate†or “national dialogue.†But don’t expect the French youth unemployment rates to come down any time soon.”
Even if you make the labor market more flexible, I’m not sure that you are going to get youth employment rates to come down unless you institute a much more reflationary fiscal policy. If the U.S. didn’t borrow and spend like there is no tomorrow, we would probably not have the unemployment rate we are all so proud of, flexible labor market or not. The labor market is going to depend on demand, and the European hesitancy about pursuing any policy that might smack even vaguely of inflation — in a deflationary period — has, I think, more to do with unemployment than anything else. In other words, cutting the cost of labor isn’t going to raise the lower the employment rate if the demand for goods isn’t elevated. The french people were right to vote out a constitution that enshrines, basically, a Herbert Hoover attitude towards the business cycle, but the French government, not getting the message and still adhering to a fiscal policy that was trashed in the U.S. long long ago, is still not borrowing and spending the amount of money it should, or easing up credit like it should. In my opinion.
March 20th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
The concept of “flexibility” in capitalism itself – the new utopian classless capitalism preached by George Gilder, etc. – as well as “flexible” labor markets has proven mythical. The whole “new economy” was said to bring flexibility to the US and Canadian labor market in the late 90s. Perhaps this “might” create more jobs (at lower pay.) Perhaps among some sectors, like the “new economy” a whole new set of snazzy jobs will be created, but the benificiaries being far smaller a group than their opposite. Its true that workers collectively need to think of moving with the economy. Its not true that one needs to submit to bargaining away what seems like an innocous slice of labor protection. It sets a precedent to further assaults on labor.
To the anti-labor, bootstraps “work ethic” types. These are as mythical and even religous as “flexibility.”
March 20th, 2006 at 2:57 pm
Balter:
>> just telling my 15 year old daughter,
>> who is in the French school system…
More anecdotal sayings, but … a friend and collaborator of mine who has taught for years at both UCLA and Ecole Normale Superieure says that, in general, the top echelon of his French students are much better prepared by their “high school” curriculum, at least in Math and Science, than the similar tippy-top of Americans. It’s no fun for me as an American to hear, but take it FWIW. He’s neither French nor American, incidentally.
I have heard similar sayings from other sources, but a look into google seems only to turn up high school French courses. I guess my lack of sources is why I am not a card carrying “journalist”?
March 20th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
reg, does France cripple its medical care system with ridiculously high malpractice suits? Why don’t the Democrats support limits on medical malpractice claims? Also, reg, your medical statistics for France are quite suspicious and dubious. Give me the links and I’ll pick apart the numbers.
Also, you are wrong about the reasons that the auto plant located in Canada. This guy knows something about it>> http://www.gmroper.com/archives/2005/07/the_french_take.htm . Even better, the article mentions French influence, so as to stay somewhat on topic. Also, last week, a new major auto plant was announced to be built in Georgia at the Alabama line–near three other major auto plants and their suppliers. They must have liked the health care system here.
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On Social Security, it’s a Ponzi scheme. Even Roosevelt recognized that when he promised to set up a system where funding covered future rather than current costs. But, what other system takes money from black males, who die early, and gives it to retired white females, who outlive everyone? http://www.teamncpa.org/main/content.php?categorylinks=13
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York, unions would like collective medical benefits managed by them so that they could have more funds to mismanage. UPS drivers had their company pension plans merged with those of other Teamsters and found that the money that UPS paid for them was going to cover people and extending their retirement time by years. They now regret joining the Teamsters..but, not the other people who are benefiting from their money.
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Michael Turmon, so what if French student are better prepared than American ones. I bet that they don’t have the “self-esteem” that our kids do, where every answer is okay and no one is made to feel bad. Our NEA teacher’s union run government schools have different priorities than simply educating students.
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Are the kids in France still protesting? Here’s what the kids in this country are doing–not much. http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3618103
March 20th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
Debts and lies are generally mixed together. Francois Rabelais
March 20th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
“UPS drivers had their company pension plans merged with those of other Teamsters and found that the money that UPS paid for them was going to cover people and extending their retirement time by years. ”
This is nonsensical. Extended retirement time? My point is without the collective the worker won’t get a pension or medical care at all. Moreover they won’t make enough to buy it privately either so your examples even if backed up by facts in one particualr instance does not a hypothesis make. There are far more exampls of corporations leaving retirees out to dry than unions doing so. Thus, even if true on some level, you’ve just asserted another rhetorical straw man.
March 20th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Imagine a shortage of young war protestors in Utah. I’m stunned.
March 20th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
Didn’t Tom Friedman declare that Eleanore?
March 20th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
As another poster noted, Englishmen and I presume other Europeans don’t quite believe that we are serious about the principle of at-will employment. “You mean you can be fired for anything…for no reason?” Yup, pretty much.
In one employment termination suit we litigated, my co-counsel was a visiting English barrister. He was mystified by my explanation of the concept, so he chose to ignore the law in his cross-examination of the owner of the company who fired our client.
After going down the list of protections that the company did not provide to its employees (and had no legal duty to provide), he exclaimed, “Well, sah, it seems that your employees have all the job security of ‘Enry the Eighth’s wives, wot?”
A: [owner, looking nervously around, hoping for objection and hearing nothing but laughter]: “Um, well, I guess not…I guess we should of…”
March 20th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
“But, what other system takes money from black males, who die early, and gives it to retired white females, who outlive everyone?”
Wow. That’s because they don’t have adequate healthcare, and some genetic concerns as well, but here’s my idea: how how about the rich, who pay in a smaller amount of their income to SS, take a lump sum buyout instead of taking the money until the grave when they don’t need it in the first place?
March 20th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
In many cases unions had ideas that could have saved US industries. The best example I know of for sure is in the auto industry. Walter Reuther spoke frequently in the mid-60s, both in public and private, about the need for the “big 3″ to abandon its obsession with large, fuel-guzzling cars, and begin to produce smaller, more efficient cars to compete with VW and the Asian products which were poised to enter the American market. GM, which made the big decisions for Ford and Chrysler, refused. It had spent the last 20 years selling Americans on bigger and more powerful, and wasn’t about to retool if it didn’t have to. By the time it “had to”, it was about 10 years behind the curve.
March 20th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
That’s about it Michael. I’m taking contract law, and I read a preemployment application for an Arizona media company I applied to and couldn’t believe the disclaimer. I could be released for any reason anytime without explanation. That’s worse than seasonal work. At least there I’m garunteed a certain length of time. It’s getting worse all the time.
March 20th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
I’m a derranged skunk and even I know that this post is outright silly.
Employers should not be forced to hire people for their whole damn lives. If you don’t need the workers, you should be able to release the workers.
March 20th, 2006 at 7:57 pm
Woody, do basic research using google on the stats. Pick a dozen different studies on several dozen links. You live in a fake right wing fantasy world, so of course actual data on this is “dubious”. And I can’t figure out for the life of me why we don’t pay more social security to people after they die and quit paying the old people who live. It’s not fair. (Your “SS robs blacks” talking point is, of course, total crap because SS payments – if you look at the entirety of the program which, of course, includes people who are disabled and survivors benefits, black benefit rather dramatically from the program. Of course, as a Republican, God knows you’re always looking out for black people. Right On! )
March 20th, 2006 at 8:04 pm
pep le pew–you are a deranged skunk, who is especially odorous –auvoir.
March 20th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
You bet that I look out for black people. They put my kids through college by playing the lottery.
March 20th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/rodwin/french.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/07/050712140821.htm
Here are two relevant links, Woody. There’s an excellent PDF that I can’t get the proper link on. But this should get you started.
March 20th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
He doesn’t have kids in college let alone through it. But the racist crack, (for those lefties that think everyone is) is par for the wingnut course. Defacto.
March 20th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
“You bet that I look out for black people. They put my kids through college by playing the lottery.”
This is why I keep a picture of General Sherman on my wall.
March 20th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
This is what I was arguing with that tag team calling me a racist as a Maine yankee for illogical reasons I luckily can’t remember. No one would say that kind of thing where I come from, but to a white southerner it’s standard fare. Hail Sherman!
March 20th, 2006 at 8:48 pm
Try this link for more health care info, Woody.
http//:dll.umaine.edu/ble/U.S.HCweb.pdf
March 20th, 2006 at 8:50 pm
sorry – that doesn’t work. Try this – google “U.S. Health Care System: Best in the World, or Just the Most Expensive”
March 20th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
another link – to a comparative health care article by Malcolm Gladwell
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050829fa_fact
March 20th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
Michael, where unions have been concerned, that has been the exception rather than the rule. The last time that there was really serious talk about fuel efficiency standards in Washington, the UAW international vice-president had this to say: “The UAW submits now is not the time to impose onerous, excessive and discriminatory fuel economy standards on General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler that will lead to job loss, which will of course will have an adverse effect on the economy”
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=022602&ID=s1107263&cat=section.business
Michael Crosby Says:
“March 20th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
In many cases unions had ideas that could have saved US industries. The best example I know of for sure is in the auto industry. Walter Reuther spoke frequently in the mid-60s, both in public and private, about the need for the “big 3″ to abandon its obsession with large, fuel-guzzling cars, and begin to produce smaller, more efficient cars”
March 20th, 2006 at 9:32 pm
I might add that when the aforementioned UAW representative made the statement that “now is not the time” for fuel efficiency standards, geologists had already determined that peak production in petroleum would hit its stride in the the next ten years. But still, “now” wasn’t the time.
March 21st, 2006 at 7:07 am
reg, the French health care project will have to take a back seat while I work on tax returns. However, I will return to the subject at some point and let you know what I found.
If you have a picture of Sherman over your mantle, then you must admire military leaders who invade other lands, burn cities, wipe out large swaths of a country, kill civilians, ruin lives, destroy economies, and get caught up in a civil war. (Yeah, we’re on the same track here.) So, do you also have a picture of Bush up there?
Oh, yes, if you also admire leaders who would leave without helping them rebuild, then you must have pictures of Murtha and half the Democrats.
—–
York, on mining issues that you raised, my grandfather is responsible for saving the lives of what could have been thousands of miner deaths from cave-ins because of innovative roof supports and safety procedures that he invented. When he was age 95, the AIME still thought enough his contributions to come down and do a big article on him for their magazine and members. You won’t find that information in your union pamphlet.
On who funds lotteries, I’ve heard it often discussed in Georgia that the poor blacks who play the lottery are putting middle-class white kids through college. That’s not a racist conclusion and is a realistic observation. I have NEVER played the lottey. It’s a game for the mathematically challenged. BTW, despite your contention, I have two kids who recently graduated from college and my daughter graduated Summa Cum Laude. In Georgia, you get basically a free college education if you maintain at least a B average, which isn’t asking a lot for a student for such a return.
—–
To stay on topic, does France have such a scholarship program for students who are willing to work hard to maintain their grades? I would expect a socialist country to let anyone stay in school for free. But, would France kick them out of school if the students were engaged in violent protests and civil disobedience against the country? Maybe France should use former CA Gov. Reagan as an example of how to run their colleges and to rid themselves of people who don’t appreciate their education. (Sorry, Marc. It turned out that Reagan might have done you a big favor.)
March 21st, 2006 at 7:29 am
Good article on the French protests…even if it is by Dennis Prager
What these massive demonstrations reveal is the narcissism, laziness and irresponsibility inculcated by socialist societies. …Socialism teaches its citizens to expect everything, even if they contribute nothing. Socialism teaches its citizens that they have a plethora of rights and few corresponding obligations — except to be taxed. …The socialist idea sounded altruistic to those who began it, and it sounds altruistic to the naive who believe in it today. In practice, however, it creates self-centered individuals and a narcissistic society. So while it may have begun as a way to help others, it has come to mean a way of evading responsibility for oneself and for others. …That is why France is so frightened of the utterly rational idea that a young person should have a two-year trial period at work before being granted a lifetime job. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/03/socialism_makes_people_worse.html
March 21st, 2006 at 8:02 am
“If you have a picture of Sherman over your mantle”
It’s not over the mantle…that’s where my wife keeps her pictures of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. It’s between the gun rack and the liquor cabinet, right next to the one of Hunter Thompson.
March 21st, 2006 at 10:17 am
…and across from the ones of Che Guevara and Jane Fonda?
March 21st, 2006 at 10:57 am
“When he was age 95, the AIME still thought enough his contributions to come down and do a big article on him for their magazine and members. You won’t find that information in your union pamphlet.”
You won’t find it anywhere. Members? Right. I’m sure he invented tunnel shoring. Southerners had to be be burned out, yet still held fast to their rascist past. I see evidedence they still do. You’re a case in point. Frankly you make us look bad as a nation. An achilles heal others can alway throw in our faces. I don’t call that a good thing.
March 21st, 2006 at 11:00 am
As for not being w journalist we can tell by the use of only biased sources you agree with. This is just more dogmatice reinforcement. That’s not reporting or analysis. Of course lack of training is the reason for not knowing the difference. That’s obvious.
March 21st, 2006 at 12:01 pm
Thank you, Michael and Marc, for some important information on the French phenomena. As the old saying goes, when the French sneeze, Europe gets a cold. Can we look forward to more of these responses if the rest of Europe attempts to implement the neo-liberal agenda?
When posters “blame” unions for attempting to impact on “competitveness” they are mistaking the abstract for the concrete. When workers exercise collective power, that will be manifest in the kind of social protections we see in Europe–universal health care, secure retirement, job security. It is what has precipitated from generations of class struggle. When capital responds, it responds with the kind of privatizing, Hobbesian proposals we’ve seen in the US for the past 20 some years–and the De Villepin-Chirac proposals in France.
It is America which is relatively unique in that the class struggle has resulted in these benefits for only a relatively privileged layer of working people–unionized workers. The failure to generalize these benefits to society at large is what has made the unionized work force such a target. The failure to institutionalize these gains in the form of society wide protections is why unions have such a large target painted on their backs.
March 21st, 2006 at 12:02 pm
Thank you, Michael and Marc, for some important information on the French phenomena. As the old saying goes, when the French sneeze, Europe gets a cold. Can we look forward to more of these responses if the rest of Europe attempts to implement the neo-liberal agenda?
When posters “blame” unions for attempting to impact on “competitveness” they are mistaking the abstract for the concrete. When workers exercise collective power, that will be manifest in the kind of social protections we see in Europe–universal health care, secure retirement, job security. It is what has precipitated from generations of class struggle. When capital responds, it responds with the kind of privatizing, Hobbesian proposals we’ve seen in the US for the past 20 some years–and the De Villepin-Chirac proposals in France.
It is America which is relatively unique in that the class struggle has resulted in these benefits for only a relatively privileged layer of working people–unionized workers. The failure to generalize these benefits to society at large is what has made the unionized work force such a target. The failure to institutionalize these gains in the form of society wide protections is why unions have such a large target painted on their backs.
March 21st, 2006 at 12:38 pm
David Cummings, the UAW was at one time correct on the need to increase gas mileage and reduce the size of cars. GM never has been. For a GM executive to say that the problem can be solved by developing alternatives to the internal combustion engine is hypocritical beyond words. GM has thwarted development of alternatives for at least 4 decades.
VP Briggs’ advice that we should pursue alternative sources instead of requiring reduced gasoline consumption in the cars GM makes sounds a lot like George Bush’s recent discovery of our nation’s “addiction” to oil. It is not just belated. It is not just dilatory, to allow the oil pushers and the paraphernalia-providers to maximize their profit for a the greatest possible time. It is insulting to our intelligence as citizens and consumers.
Or is it your thesis, Mr. Cummings, that it’s OK for GM to advocate against increased mileage standards to protect profit, but it is not OK for UAW to do the same to protect its members’ jobs?
I disagree with the position each is taking. I also understand that the leadership of both the corporation and the union take the only position they could take given their role to represent stockholders and workers, respectively. I would only note that the UAW’s position is not explained by resort to hypocrisy and posturing; GM’s is.
March 21st, 2006 at 12:49 pm
When Michael Balter says that American Society is more dynamic just what does he mean? The culture? The Economy? I suspect he lives in France and has his daughter in the French Educational system because, dynamism aside, he finds the Frenchway of life preferable. So did T R Reed whose books clearly demonstrates the superiority of the European model. I have some distrust of the comparative unemployement figures as a realistic view of US Statistics suggests a rate closer to 10% than the official figures. I don’t know how unemployment is counted in Europe. Maybe someone will write in the methodology. I do know that several European commentators like to say that they don’t consider American “McJobs” to be real jobs anyway.
Why so many people here actively dislike job protections mystifies me. Maybe thay feel immume since they are such splendid employees. Surely they are not all entrepeneurs! I think people here suffer in silence when they are laid off. What did I do wrong? I suspect the European attitude is that there may be2 a` societal role involved.
Woody I suspect that medical malpractice occurs everywhere but may not be an issue in states where socialised Health care will take care of the mistakes and a generious disability system provides income support. Just a thought.
March 21st, 2006 at 2:41 pm
The only way it’s counted here is if you have an active claim. Unemployed without a claim are far higher.
March 21st, 2006 at 3:06 pm
“In practice, however, it creates self-centered individuals and a narcissistic society. ”
Woody,
Is this a description of socialism or is it a description of the “ruling class” in the U.S. ???
In fact, its the ruling class in our society that are reaping the benefits of socialism–just look at the list of war profiteers–they’ve become wealthy off of the backs of the working-class. It’s the poor and working-class who are forced to survive under the capitalist notion of social Darwinism.
That’s why your friends are always smiling–they’re enjoying the fruits squeezed from working-class labor.
March 21st, 2006 at 4:00 pm
“is it your thesis, Mr. Cummings, that it’s OK for GM to advocate against increased mileage standards to protect profit, but it is not OK for UAW to do the same to protect its members’ jobs?”
I feel that the hesitancy on both of these entities to embrace fuel conservation is equally far sighted. So, they are both wrong.
Personally, though, I don’t have anything against unions in general. I am a member of one, and I concede that they do considerably more good than harm.
March 21st, 2006 at 7:38 pm
Eleanore, all of us are the working-class. In one sense, that term applies more to business owners who work ALL the time than it does to the 40-hour a week bunch, who leave problems at the factory gate. Bill Gates works. And, way down the scale from him, I work.
I can tell you that I work easily 55-60 hours a week and then I take my work problems home with me and often wake up at 3:00 AM worrying and planning. I’m not alone in this routine. I work, but I’m not smiling.
The ones who should smile are the people who get to go home early every day and have jobs ready for them the next because of the efforts of others who invested their money and their time and took great risks.
If owning a business is so great and so easy, then all of these oppressed workers should try it. At least, they could then appreciate those who employ them.
March 21st, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Oh, and let the French kids try running a business with all the government restraints and employment rules. They would never be appreciative, but maybe they would shut-up and prove their worth.
March 21st, 2006 at 7:47 pm
rlr – Without caps on medical malpractice claims, someone has to pay for outrageous judgements, whether it’s through higher premiums or higher taxes. Still, someone has to pay.
—–
I think that Michael Balter gave up and left. It’s ironic that he writes about dead civilizations and takes that experience to now write about France.
March 21st, 2006 at 8:50 pm
Woody your IQ isn’t high enough to be able to read one of his articles. How hard would it be to write about Georgia. Dumb crackers and pickaninnies. That’s your world.
March 25th, 2006 at 12:16 am
I recall that Gertrude Stein wrote of the half her life that she spent in Paris – the half the she became what she became – that it was not what Paris gave but what it did not take away.
For a dead civilization Europe manages tobe pretty competitive on things like airliners and cell phones. And still make money on textiles and shoes. In fact I think, outside of the UK (surprise, surprise!) their trade balaces are pretty much that – balanced. I really think the boosterism here about being the biggest, baddest, best is so much hooey.
And one of the reasons for that is Europeans still see a connection between politics and their lives and that politics therefore matters. It is pretty hard to see that connection here. And so, when French Youth rebel against a law making them second class they do not take it as unchangeable. Here the reaction would be different – more MTV maybe.
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