# "At Will" employment. The French workers' reaction vs. Americans **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 4, 2005, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727 "2005-10-04T13:39:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/101 "2005-10-05T12:56:16Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Thanks for yout reply. But for an entity to remain healthy, and hopefully vibrant, it has to be allowed to act in its own best interest. Perhaps the people in France are doing that, on a level you are incapable of understanding due to your philosophical prejudices. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/102 "2005-10-05T13:03:01Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Anyway…France is an affluent country. You might argue that its model can’t be sustained in the future if you want, but you can’t argue that it’s a ridiculouly flawed model that can’t work, because it did. At least since the 80s I have been hearing conservatives salivate with glee over the imminent collapse of the European economy due to all the socialistic safety nets they provide for workers instead of allowing them to go homeless and starve, etc., as any decent capitalist country would do. Instead, the European economies seem to be getting on par with the US economy and surpassing it certain respect. I’m just wondering how many decades it will take for conservatives to learn the obvious lesson here. My guess would be … at least 10, if they are indeed capable of learning it at all. They are so entranced by the short-term benefit of low wages that they are totally oblivious of the benefits of a strong middle class. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/103 "2005-10-05T13:05:15Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I got my hair; I got my head; I got my brains; I got my ears; I got my mouth; I got my teeth!; I got my tongue; I got my chin; I got my neck; I got my tits; I got my heart; I got my soul; I got my back; I got my ass; I got my arms; I got my hands; I got my fingers; I got my legs; I got my feet; I got my toes; I got my liver… Got my blood. > > (Apologies to Gerome Ragni) I’d double-check at least one of the organs on that list if I were you. Possibly two. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/104 "2005-10-05T13:08:02Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > What does that even mean, “equal grounds”? Are you really so oblivious that you don’t understand that one person losing one of several employees is not nearly so endangered as a person who has lost their sole or major source of income? Is all your experience with work strictly theoretical, or what? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/105 "2005-10-05T13:12:02Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I think the disagreement hinges on the term"reasonable". If I can make more money or improve the quality of my product or protect myself better with Employee Bob than Employee Joe, Joe is history. I think that is reasonable. If I can’t make such decisions I run the risk of having to fire all employees and losing my own job. I owe it to my company to maintain it’s health to the best of my ability. And the judge of that is the owner. In a large company, a CEO, representing the owners. How you can think that the decision to replace a worker is best left to anyone but the owner is baffling to me. If an Employee doesn’t want to be replaced, he should work toward making himself invaluable. As long as that is the paradigm, everyone wins. The hidden assumption within your argument is that it is all right for you to treat human beings like crap so long as it makes more money for you. I reject that assumption. Joe is not a machine part to be used and discarded. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/106 "2005-10-05T13:36:31Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I agree. Where we likely disagree is on what to check. Why a person should not have power over his own property, you have failed to make clear… Simply, I don’t consider property as sacro-saint. I explained why many times in old threads arguing with libertarian. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/107 "2005-10-05T14:14:16Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > Oh really? Do you any cites on the rates of upward mobility in the U.S? > [@](#): > > # In a comparison of eight European and North American countries, Britain and the United States have the lowest social mobility > > # Social mobility in Britain has declined whereas in the US it is stable > > # Part of the reason for Britain’s decline has been that the better off have benefited disproportionately from increased educational opportunity > [@](#): > > A careful comparison reveals that the USA and Britain are at the bottom with the lowest social mobility. Norway has the greatest social mobility, followed by Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Germany is around the middle of the two extremes, and Canada was found to be much more mobile than the UK. [UK and USA lowest social mobility](http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/pressAndInformationOffice/newsAndEvents/archives/2005/LSE_SuttonTrust_report.htm) > [@](#): > > But more and more evidence from social scientists suggests that American society is much “stickier” than most Americans assume. Some researchers claim that social mobility is actually declining. A classic social survey in 1978 found that 23% of adult men who had been born in the bottom fifth of the population (as ranked by social and economic status) had made it into the top fifth. Earl Wysong of Indiana University and two colleagues recently decided to update the study. They compared the incomes of 2,749 father-and-son pairs from 1979 to 1998 and found that few sons had moved up the class ladder. Nearly 70% of the sons in 1998 had remained either at the same level or were doing worse than their fathers in 1979. The biggest increase in mobility had been at the top of society, with affluent sons moving upwards more often than their fathers had. They found that only 10% of the adult men born in the bottom quarter had made it to the top quarter. > [@](#): > > Not all social scientists accept the conclusion that mobility is declining. Gary Solon, of the University of Michigan, argues that there is no evidence of any change in social-mobility rates, down or up. But, at the least, most people agree that the dramatic increase in income inequality over the past two decades has not been accompanied by an equally dramatic increase in social mobility. > [@](#): > > There is also growing evidence that America is less socially mobile than many other rich countries. Mr Solon finds that the correlation between the incomes of fathers and sons is higher in the United States than in Germany, Sweden, Finland or Canada. Such cross-national comparisons are rife with problems: different studies use different methods and different definitions of social status. But Americans are clearly mistaken if they believe they live in the world’s most mobile society. > [@](#): > > The main reason may be a paradoxical one: because the meritocratic revolution of the first half of the 20th century has been at least half successful. Members of the American elite live in an intensely competitive universe. \It is hard for such people to imagine that America is anything but a meritocracy: their lives are a perpetual competition. Yet it is a competition among people very much like themselves—the offspring of a tiny slither of society—rather than among the full range of talents that the country has to offer. > > The second reason is that America’s engines of upward mobility are no longer working as effectively as they once were. The most obvious example lies in the education system. Upward mobility is increasingly determined by education. The income of people with just a high-school diploma was flat in 1975-99, whereas that of people with a bachelor’s degree rose substantially, and that of people with advanced degrees rocketed. > > The education system is increasingly stratified by social class, and poor children have a double disadvantage. They attend schools with fewer resources than those of their richer contemporaries (school finances are largely determined by local property taxes). And they have to deal with the legacy of what Michael Barone, a conservative commentator, has labelled “soft America”. Soft America is allergic to introducing accountability and measurement in education, particularly if it takes the form of merit pay for successful teachers or rewards for outstanding pupils. Dumbed-down schools are particularly harmful to poor children, who are unlikely to be able to compensate for them at home. [Social mobility is declining](http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3518560) ---
**Author:** ![Stonebow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Stonebow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stonebow)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/108 "2005-10-05T14:31:06Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > The hidden assumption within your argument is that it is all right for you to treat human beings like crap so long as it makes more money for you. I reject that assumption. Joe is not a machine part to be used and discarded. I agree 100%. I am concerned over the idea that one must make themselves ‘invaluable’ in order to maintain their livelihood. At what point do you stop working to live and begin living to work? I am also a bit distressed at the cavalier dismissal of the concept of ‘need’ having to do with anything. If Joe can’t meet his needs via honest negotiation with his employer, then I don’t see why he can’t see the government for redress. Get rid of both of those options, and do you think that Joe will balk at meeting his needs through extra-legal means? Would you blame him? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/109 "2005-10-05T14:33:22Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > The hidden assumption within your argument is that it is all right for you to treat human beings like crap so long as it makes more money for you. I reject that assumption. Joe is not a machine part to be used and discarded. Perhaps what you are incapable of understanding due to your philosophical prejudices is that as long as competition and a free market is allowed to flourish, if I treat people badly they can more easily find employment elsewhere. Ditto if I’m running “fat”. If I am taking the profits from my company and buying yachts while my employees are treated “shittily”, I’ve just created an opportunity for you to start a competing company run on a more egalitarian model. Mind you, if my employees are treated well and are content, I should be able to buy all the yachts I want. The fact is that the more difficult you make it for companies to adjust to challenging times the less attractive you make it for people to start companies. And that is the worst news for the working man as it results in fewer options for him. The more options he has, the more power he has in the job market. I grant you that _theoretically_ you can build a model that would change what it means for a company to make decisions based on it’s own self interests. It’s called socialism. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/110 "2005-10-05T14:41:40Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Simply, I don’t consider property as sacro-saint. I explained why many times in old threads arguing with libertarian. I think what you are saying is that you consider a job to be (more or less) the property of the worker, rather than the employer, and that therefore the property right of the worker is more important than the employer. Yes? Regards, Shodan You might want to remember that his screen name is **Liberal**. I am sure it was inadvertant, but it has been an issue in the past. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/111 "2005-10-05T15:37:45Z")
> [@Bomzaway](#): > > Not at all. First, all businesses are not corporations. Many are just the livelihood of regular people. Second, corporations are owned by individuals, so your point doesn’t quite make sense in this context. Don’t get me wrong, I see what you mean, but when you go a layer deeper, the logic breaks down. Yeah, but in the real world, your logic breaks down, or more to the point, your assumptions are false in several important respects. Let’s say I have a business that has small profit margins. If I am forced to keep an unproductive worker employed, my margins are affected because I’ll either have to ask my other employees to do overtime to compensate for the unproductive worker (UW), or I’ll have to hire yet another person to make up for the lack of productivity from the UW. Either way, I’m paying more for the same result. If this scenario is repeated, the impact on my profit margins can become severe enough that I have to shut down. Now, everyone’s out of a job because the government forced me to retain UW’s, and the business that I worked so hard to build up has been destroyed, for the sake of a few deadbeats. [/quote] OK, here’s where we have a difference that may be resolvable. The UW you are describing is such a fuckup that he is bringing the business down. I have always maintained that it is all right to let go of an employee who won’t or can’t do his job. But the argument that you seem to be advancing, and that has been advanced elsewhere in this thread, is that it is all right to let go of a capable worker in favor of a more capable worker. Let’s say worker Mary is capable of processing 10 blivets per hour. This is all he is really expected to do, keeps the workflow moving along, etc. Then an employer discovers that jobseeker Jim can process 15 blivets an hour. This creates a marginal increase in profits. So worker Mary is out on her ass … sucks to be Mary, seems to be the sentiment here. But it’s not just productivity that’s at issue. There’s a well-known trend for companies to toss out older middle aged workers when their salaries and health insurance claims go up. In this case the layoff has nothing to do with worker Dan’s performance, just the expense of keeping Dan on. This all works very well for the corps, but what about Dan and Mary? Sucks to be them, I know. But maybe Mary is a single mother who now has to move back in with her parents because she can’t find another job and can’t pay rent. Maybe Dan finds another job, but at much lower wages, with no health benefits, and his kids are suddenly going to have a tough time getting any kind of post-secondary education, while he and the Mrs. have a much tougher time managing their health problems as they age. When you fire someone, these things happen. They have a ripple effect throughout society. I consider companies that let people go without any kind of safety to be like the old-time firms that just want to dump their wastes in the rivers and streams without any concern whatsoever for the environment. They argued that having environmental regulations kept business expenses up and made it harder for them to hire. Then the Cuyahoga River caught fire from all the pollutants and people out west starting finding lead and mercury and whatnot in their water from all the mining operations, and suddenly people figured out there was in fact a social cost to all this dumping companies were doing. We finally got business to acknowledge that government can and should manage the environment for the benefit of all. I would argue that there’s a social cost when companies dump people, too, and that government can and should manage that for the benefit of all. But we’re back where we were in the 60s, with the companies fighting ANY restriction on what they can do. Meanwhile, European economies continue to thrive, because they arent’ discarding their skilled people like they were used candy wrappers. I would suspect there is a huge hidden economic benefit to the European social safety net that conservative leaders on both side of the Atlantic would like to ignore, just as we now acknowledge that there are economic benefits to maintaining a clean, healthy environment. (Well, some of us.) ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/112 "2005-10-05T15:53:38Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > Perhaps the people in France are doing that, on a level you are incapable of understanding due to your philosophical prejudices. The French [unemployment rate](http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/41/13/18595359.pdf) is almost double that of the United States. To correct that situation the French government mandated a 35 hr work week, thus making the labor market less efficient. The result was an increase in unemployment. What are you proposing that the French know that we don’t? ---
**Author:** ![Wake\_up\_call](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dec6dc/32.png) [@Wake\_up\_call](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wake_up_call)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/113 "2005-10-05T16:04:54Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > I have always maintained that it is all right to let go of an employee who won’t or can’t do his job. I am sure you know the business buzz word: “Management of Expectation”. In other words, when you are in business, you have to make sure that you do not promise your customers what you cannot possibly deliver. In other words, don’t sell Real Estate on planet Mars, because it will come back to haunt you. And yet, as a businessman, you have no idea how to manage your own expectations from your employees. You want them to deliver 1,000 %, while you think you are paying them too much. Let’s face it, as an employer, you are after “improving productivity”. What does that mean in terms of Profit/Labor-cost ratio? Let me ask you, What percentage of employers, do you believe, have a “double standard” when it comes to “Management of Expectations” from their workers? After all, it is YOU, the employer, who is the judge and the jury to decide which employee “won’t or can’t do his job”. As far as I am concerned, no matter what I do for you, you may think that is not “good enough” for YOU. Where is the jury to judge your "Management of Expectations? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/114 "2005-10-05T16:34:10Z")
I’m only going to dip a toe into this thread as I’ve seen in the past the futility of trying to debate with the faithful on economics and such. But I was reading [this](http://www.time.com/time/europe/eu/magazine/0,13716,106310,00.html) article today and thought I’d toss it in. > [@](#): > > Saying No to Profits > Since Marks & Spencer and Danone announced thousands of job losses, France has been fighting back with court action, boycotts and demos > > … > > Petit LU and scores of other brands produced by the French food group Danone became boycott targets after the company revealed plans on March 29 to close six factories and eliminate 1,816 jobs across Europe — 570 of them in France — despite profits last year of nearly $660 million. French outrage at seeing a robust company lay off workers was fanned further by news that British retailer Marks & Spencer would close all its Continental stores, including 18 outlets in France employing 1,700 people, to focus on its core British market. In addition to the abruptness of its announcement — delivered by e-mail to stunned staffers just five minutes before the day’s opening of the London stock exchange — Marks & Spencer also shocked French sensibilities by announcing a $3 billion return to shareholders this year and by offering its chief executive a potential bonus of up to $1.15 million. > > The two moves convinced many in France that globalization and its focus on efficiency, competitiveness and profitability had got out of hand. With memories still fresh of the high unemployment and economic sluggishness that dogged the nation for much of the 1980s and mid-1990s, many French reject the notion that a \*\*healthy company should be allowed \*\* to take the bread out of employees’ mouths and hand it to shareholders. In a recent French poll, 85% of respondents called firings by profitable companies unjustifiable. “The logic of profit must not be exercised to the detriment of employment,” scolded Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. “Yes to a market economy, but no to a market society.” > > As it has in the past, that position seemed to collide with what the French call the Anglo-Saxon view — held in Britain, the U.S. and much of the industrialized world — that firms should be free to maximize profits and respond to competition by shedding jobs as they see fit. Though governments everywhere still occasionally pressure employers to maintain inefficient factories and surplus workers, most developed countries outside Europe, and several within, have embraced the free-market approach to economic management. In addition, a wave of corporate “restructuring” in recent years has left many multinationals leaner, meaner and more competitively staffed than ever. “Do people think Nestlé, Unilever, or PepsiCo are really more socially attuned than Danone?” warned Danone ceo Franck Riboud of his larger, recently restructured, global competitors. “The answer is clearly no.” > > Riboud complained that some in France want to turn “Danone into a symbol of a globalized economy ruled by shareholder decree” — a world the French emphatically reject. Hoping to force Danone to renounce its restructuring, consumers, school districts, municipal cafeterias and private businesses across France answered calls from politicians to boycott Danone brands. Meanwhile, a French court ordered Marks & Spencer to halt its closure scheme and comply with labor laws requiring businesses to consult workers before any significant operational change. Still smarting over the defection of traditional working-class voters in local elections last month, members of France’s leftist parliamentary majority even vowed to pass a law banning the firing of workers by profitable companies. > > “It’s as though we’re again seeing a bad movie from the past,” lamented Ernest-Antoine Sellière, president of France’s employers’ group medef, calling the reaction of workers and political leaders “an archaic reflex in an atmosphere of regression.” Admitted an adviser to Finance Minister Laurent Fabius: “A business has the right to reduce its workforce, and the public has the right to judge whether that’s abusive or not. A government, however, has no right to intervene in private affairs, and despite threats to the contrary, no laws will be passed allowing ours to do so.” > > Regardless of last week’s outcry, the French response to layoffs has been inconsistent in recent years. True, tire giant Michelin provoked a storm in 1999 when it reported enormous profits along with news it would drop 7,000 people from its payroll, most of them in France. But hardly a word of alarm was muttered when plant closures by Renault in 1998 eliminated 3,097 jobs, perhaps because they were all in Belgium. Nor did protest arise after Renault took a 36.8% stake in Japanese carmaker Nissan in 1999 and soon cut 20,000 positions, nearly all of them in Japan. > > When French communications group Alcatel decided to cut costs this month, it turned first to the U.S., announcing the elimination of 1,000 jobs there — a restructuring strategy that French automotive supplier Valeo is reportedly considering that could cost 3,000 jobs. “The French attitude toward globalization is contradictory but not illogical,” says Dominique Moïsi, deputy director of the French Institute of International Relations. “Globalization is accepted for the benefits it brings but resisted when it undermines the particular French sense of social solidarity.” > > … > > Critics say France is also building a high-cost, heavily regulated, anti-entrepreneurial economy that is increasingly ill-suited to the rigors of global competition. Such sweeping statements are probably overdrawn. Though the French are clearly suspicious of globalization and what they think it means — from layoffs to McDonald’s hamburgers to genetically modified food — France is in fact adapting well to the new, increasingly integrated global trading system. Exports were up 13.8% last year, Internet usage grew by 76% and French companies are acquiring foreign rivals in ever-greater numbers. Admittedly, I’m one of those ‘conservatives’ who is waiting and watching for nations like France to either do a radical (and painful) shift, to basically fall off the charts economically and become a 2nd or even 3rd rate economy…or to fall apart completely, economically speaking. I think that putting SOME market driven elements back into their economies has saved a lot of the European nations and done wonders in countries like the UK. All I can say is, unless my own world view is completely wrong the situation as it is in France today is not sustainable…something has to give. They may be able to bump along for years or even a decade or two, but the wall is approaching IMO and its going to be pretty ugly when they smack into it. Just my opinion of course…I could be wrong. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/115 "2005-10-05T16:46:06Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > But the argument that you seem to be advancing, and that has been advanced elsewhere in this thread, is that it is all right to let go of a capable worker in favor of a more capable worker. Let’s say worker Mary is capable of processing 10 blivets per hour. This is all he is really expected to do, keeps the workflow moving along, etc. Then an employer discovers that jobseeker Jim can process 15 blivets an hour. This creates a marginal increase in profits. So worker Mary is out on her ass … sucks to be Mary, seems to be the sentiment here. There is no fixed acceptable expectation. If the company doesn’t hire the worker able to process 15 blivets an hour, some other company will. Leaving the first company in a worse competitive position, which, taken to the extreme, would eventually force it to close down. > [@Evil Captor](#): > > But it’s not just productivity that’s at issue. There’s a well-known trend for companies to toss out older middle aged workers when their salaries and health insurance claims go up. In this case the layoff has nothing to do with worker Dan’s performance, just the expense of keeping Dan on. There was a country in Europe, can’t remember which (Norway?), which tried with some laws making it illegal to fire workers over 60. Resulting in more unemployment than ever for middle aged workers as no company with a sane mind would ever hire persons they couldn’t get rid of again. The same results have been seen in Denmark with laws prohibiting sacking pregnant women. They have resulted in companies much more reluctant to hire on young women, and doing all sort of things to see if she may be pregnant or planning a baby. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/116 "2005-10-05T16:58:34Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Simply, I don’t consider property as sacro-saint. I explained why many times in old threads arguing with libertarian. Neither do I consider property to be sacrosanct. There are far more important things to me than possessions, which you would know had you participated in some of the old theology threads with Libertarian. 😉 I’m just trying to get you to explain why a woman’s company is somehow less hers than her house is — unless you do in fact believe that people should be allowed to squat and pitch tents in her yard. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/117 "2005-10-05T17:03:13Z")
Its that whole ‘unintended consequences’ thingy Rune…it tends to bite one on the ass when one is not looking. Knowing you guys will LOVE the [source](http://www.forbes.com/columnists/free_forbes/2003/1006/037.html), I’m going to post this as well though it doesn’t directly impact on the OP’s question. Its obviously and older article (from 2003) so perhaps things have radically changed since then…I’m not sure, I just happened to find this on on a quick search of how well France’s economy is doing these days. > [@](#): > > The EU is built on a fantasy–that men and women can do less and less work, have longer and longer holidays and retire at an earlier age, while having their income, in real terms, and their standard of living increase. And this miracle is to be brought about by the enlightened bureaucratic regulation of every aspect of life. > > The EU is a French concept and is still largely run according to French ideas. And France is the archetypal EU country. If you have a regular job in France, your life is, in theory, lyrical. You work 35 hours a week. You generally get four weeks of holiday in August, plus a further three weeks throughout the year, in addition to 11 state holidays. Full medical care is provided, even in retirement. Retirement age varies, but it is now typically 55. Pensions may be two-thirds to three-quarters of a person’s salary at the time of retirement. > > Tarnished Image > All this is wonderful, but it is dependent, even in theory, on the European Union’s expanding continuously, its economy running at full throttle, its productivity steadily increasing and a profound peace cocooning the world in a nest of luxurious tranquility. But in the real world, things are different. The EU has discovered, since the autumn of 2001, that it has little ability to determine events because its armed forces are small, underfunded, obsolete and ill-trained. Apart from making trouble at the UN, France and Germany–those two former military giants that once made the world tremble–have been mere spectators. Now France, followed by a still more reluctant Germany, is being obliged to take defense seriously for the first time in many years, thus upsetting all its budget calculations. > > … > > Reality Bites > These are all symptoms of a painful disease, a continental depression born of the realization that EU prosperity is a house built upon sand. While the American economy is picking up, the EU’s remains in stagnation, bordering on recession. The 35-hour workweek is splendid, provided you have a job. But what of the growing millions who are out of work and whose social security payments are now threatened with reduction or cut-off dates? Unemployment, already high, is rising in France and Germany. > > In virtually every industry there are plans to shrink the work force. People have become too expensive, especially in France and Germany, where social security payments cost an employer almost as much as wages. In a desperate attempt to get its economy moving, France is set to cut income taxes, though this will raise its deficit to a level strictly forbidden by the rules governing the common European currency (the euro). France thus risks having enormous fines levied against it or, more likely, a collapse in confidence in the euro. > > The truth is that the EU has been living beyond its means, and its bills are coming due. The biggest bill of all–the cost of generous state pensions, which in most EU countries are underfunded–is looming. It’s true that most advanced countries are having difficulties meeting pensions because people are living longer and work forces are expanding more slowly (or not at all). Britain is running into a pension crisis. Most of those who banked on a healthy private pension for their old age are going to be disappointed, partly because returns on investments are so low and partly because the Labour finance minister, Gordon Brown, has been raiding the till by abolishing tax-free pension dividends. This is the issue that will lose Tony Blair the next election, as the pain of Labour’s “pension raid” is felt. But at least Britain has a properly funded public pension plan. And the British economy is moving forward, perhaps not as fast as America’s, but at a healthy and accelerating rate. > > The omens for continental Europe, however, are sinister. The entire plan for perpetual improvement upon which the EU depends is based on continuous economic expansion. There is no provision for stagnation. As we see in Japan, once stagnation sets in, it can last many years. Americans should count their blessings, above all the supreme blessing of having an economy that is run by businessmen not bureaucrats, or that–under wise governance–runs itself. Enjoy! 😉 -XT ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/118 "2005-10-05T17:04:07Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > The French [unemployment rate](http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/41/13/18595359.pdf) is almost double that of the United States. To correct that situation the French government mandated a 35 hr work week, thus making the labor market less efficient. The result was an increase in unemployment. What are you proposing that the French know that we don’t? I would argue that there are many many unemployed Frenchmen who are living much more comfortably that Americans employed at low-wage jobs. Many of our jobs offer no health benefits and wages that don’t cover living expenses, and limited work hours, so that a worker must hold down two such jobs. I have read in the Atlanta Constitution about an elderly Atlanta IHOP waitress living in a shelter maid of boxes because she couldn’t afford an apartment. I would consider people living on such margins to be semi-employed, at best. In fact, the US Dept. of Health and Human Services estimates that we have up to 600,000 people homeless people in the US, 40 percent of whom work . [(Cite.)](http://www.freedonation.com/homeless/homeless_stats.php3). In fact, even those working poor who can get a roof over their heads often have only the emergency rooms that are required to take indigents as their last-resort sources of medical care. So I would argue that it is far better to be unemployed in France than a working poor person in America. Now, as for business, some businessmen have come to understand the problems that deep poverty brings. Here’s a CEO in Business Week who seems to get it: > [@](#): > > A 2003 study of 1990s mobility by two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found that the chances that poor Americans would stay stuck in their strata had increased vs. the 1970s. Given the economy’s strong showing in the '90s, that’s a concern. “If current trends persist, a greater and greater share of wealth will keep going into the hands of the few, which will destroy initiative,” worries James D. Sinegal, CEO of Costco Wholesale Corp., which offers above-average pay and benefits in the retail sector. “We’ll no longer have a motivated working class.” [That whole article is very interesting and tends more to side with me than with you – and it’s from a business mag.](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_22/b3885001_mz001.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/119 "2005-10-05T17:09:39Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > Are you really so oblivious that you don’t understand that one person losing one of several employees is not nearly so endangered as a person who has lost their sole or major source of income? Honestly, there’s no point in slinging ad hominems around. If you think that I’m oblivious, then your responding to me is insane, isn’t it? Why you select endangerment as the ground to level when an employer and employee part company is unclear. Merely consider what would happen if you enforced your theory. Shutting down the employer just because an employee leaves harms any number of other people as simply a matter of scale. If endangerment were something to level, then you ought to advocate social guarantees to people who skydive, since they face far more danger than people who do not. If all risk and reward are made equal, then why should anyone risk a business venture that employs people at all? > [@](#): > > Is all your experience with work strictly theoretical, or what? Not at all. I’ve worked for forty years, and have owned two companies. I believe you’ve already acknowledged that you have no experience with business ownership, haven’t you? If theoretical musings are such a bad thing, then maybe you ought not to be posting. Or did you mean that they are bad for everyone besides you? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2005, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727/120 "2005-10-05T17:11:01Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Admittedly, I’m one of those ‘conservatives’ who is waiting and watching for nations like France to either do a radical (and painful) shift, to basically fall off the charts economically and become a 2nd or even 3rd rate economy…or to fall apart completely, economically speaking. I think that putting SOME market driven elements back into their economies has saved a lot of the European nations and done wonders in countries like the UK. All I can say is, unless my own world view is completely wrong the situation as it is in France today is not sustainable…something has to give. They may be able to bump along for years or even a decade or two, but the wall is approaching IMO and its going to be pretty ugly when they smack into it. > > Just my opinion of course…I could be wrong. > > -XT You’d have been wrong 20 years ago, perhaps you will be wrong now. I think it very likely that you will be wrong, myself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-will-employment-the-french-workers-reaction-vs-americans/324727.md?page=7)