Oh, I read your post. But in your subsequent post you incorrectly asserted that articles are added to titles.
Articles should not be used in this fashion. You’re either using it as a phrase (in allusion to the title), in which case Kobal2 is right to say that it should be treated as a phrase that already contains an article, not as a title; or else you’re using it as a title, in which case it doesn’t take an article in any event.
I would say either “the rest of Les Misérables” or “the rest of that Les Misérables rabble” or the like (assuming I held opinions similar to yours, which I do not), using the title as an attributive (which, not being a nominative way of using the title, can be preceded by an article or correlative modifying “rabble”).
Honestly it could be summed up in saying Sarkozy’s government went for a fast track, no negociations at all, labor unions are irrelevant road, and it backfired almost immediately. That’s far from being the first time they do that, but the backlash never reached that level before (accumulated frustrations I guess).
Going for a hard unpopular stance for a plan that only (possibly) would “carry us safely” till 2018 was the rotten cherry on top of a turdcake.
They would never have had to face such opposition had they tried negociating in the first place. They thought unions were too weak, and that they were the Right’s ubermensch, finally burying all those pesky unions under the guises of “National Interest”. Killing any street opposition has been the long sought Grail of the French Right for many decades. Achieving it would have made Sarkozy the Arthur (more correctly the Galahad if I remember right) of Conservatism.
Too bad, this is the land of the Jacqueries. Opposition doesnt suddenly disappear because you’ve won the elections.
I thought about reading more of this topic but the first post deterred me
Everyone should have the right to strike. It’s pretty much the only option available to workers. If people are pissed, then give them what they want. Labor doesn’t have the option to fire management, so they should have the power to shut down the industry if necessary
The whole shit about how much the retirement age in the rest of the EU is an irrelevant distraction
So you wouldn’t mind if the traffic controllers went on strike while your flight is stacked up in IFR conditions? Remember the last time France had a major heat wave that killed thousands of people? How would you like your power company employees to go on strike in the middle of winter or summer?
Strikes in such critical departments are subject to minimum service laws, at least they are in France. Meaning it’s illegal to shut them down completely, or in your example to shut down ATC operations while there’s birds in final approach. The right to strike is not a terrorism license, nor a suicide pact. When the train drivers strike, one train in four or five is still running. When the ATCs strike, flights still come in and out just not all of them, etc…
In our current predicament, for example, the government had demanded (and obtained) from the gas blockaders that they let enough trucks through to fuel hospitals, fire trucks, EMTs and the police.
Incorrect? What are you talking about? It’s a matter of style. The Les Miserables is entirely standard English, as I claimed it was. I have no interest in remembering the definite and indefinite articles of every language which has had a work translated into English.
I don’t disagree with the right to strike per-se, I think it’s a practical necessity as much as anything. I have no problem with labour striking if they are being treated unfairly.
What I find odd and quite distastful is the attitude displayed here, that labour should somehow be in control of how the business is run. I’m sorry, but the workers do not own the means of production. Labour shouldn’t be able to fire the managers, or have any real say in the running of the business because it’s not their business. I think it’s no coincidence that many Union leaders are Marxists, they see Union power as a way to wrestle control of businesses from the owners.
But the problem is that successful businesses remain successful by being adaptable and being run by good businessmen. Once the Unions muscle in on management it often seems to lead to uncompetetive companies that end up hurting their workforce even more severely when they inevitably go bust. We have seen this time and time again in the UK and the US.
Public sector strikes are a different matter. In France they appear to be in danger of falling into the bread-and-circuses trap. Once a large enough portion of the population is employed directly by the state and is organised well enough it will become impossible to reduce the state in any meaningful way.
Out of interest how would you explain the German Labour management system where unions are entitled to a seat on the board of some companies? And all local departments/sections etc have a work council to adapt the national level agreements to local circumstances.
Or Denmark where unions negotiate wage contracts in sectors across the whole economy. These are economically dynamic countries with great industry management-worker relations. Why haven’t unions made Germany, Sweden, Finland or Denmark uncompetitive?
I’ll confess to not knowing much about it, though I’ve just done some quick research. This page is quite interesting as it lists board-level worker representation by country.
Firstly I would suggest that this is fundamentally different from strong Unions forcing/restricting company policy from the outside via strikes. It may actually be a better system, since representatives sitting on the board are more likely (IMO) to be able to see the bigger picture and less likely to push unrealistic pro-labour policies in the face of business necessities. From what I could find German rules regarding striking are also substantially more restrictive than the UK/France, though I could be wrong. If so then it seems like a pragmatic trade-off to me. I don’t disagree with worker representation, I think it’s healthy, and perhaps that’s better than having little internal representation but strong external Unions?
I would mind, but I would be more pissed at whoever’s fault it is for being unreasonable at the negotiating table. I hope that before such a thing affects me personally, I would have read at least a little bit to figure out the issues instead of what you’re doing, which is to blame the most visible and easiest targets
Attitudes like yours is exactly why workers need to be able to strike. Why don’t you blame management for not giving the workers what they want instead of simply saying damn the strikers? Maybe management is being unreasonable. Granted, it is hard for us in America to see what the big deal is in raising the retirement age up 2 years, but the issue isn’t the specifics of what they’re striking about, it’s the right to strike in the first place
If striking workers shut down the power company during summer, I can tell you what I would not do. I would NOT simply blame the workers. If it’s anything like strikes I’ve seen and lived through, I would blame the management for not giving the workers their due. But that, of course, depends on the facts of the case
Just because it’s always been done one way doesn’t mean it is the best or correct way. Management and Labor should share power. Either one is replaceable, so I don’t agree that one side should have almost total control over the other. The percentage of power between the sides is negotiable, of course, as not all industries are the same. But what is good for workers is often good for management because they both have an incentive to make sure the company is profitable and well-run
Jobs are jobs, whether employed by the state or private companies.
Labor isn’t a function of what you want, it’s a function of profit. You can’t negotiate for money that doesn’t exist and in the case of France’s social programs, the money is not there. Every day they extend the debt is a loss of money for future generations.
While one banker, realtor, currency speculator or any other of the bunch of spivs who crashed the world economy and forced the rest of us to bail them out at the expense of our own jobs and pensions still has a pot to piss in there is money available.
So, you invest say £1 million setting up a business. This business hires 50 people for a reasonable wage, creating jobs that may not have existed otherwise. These 50 people then unionise and tell you that you no longer have full management control over your business, even though you have invested all the capital and own the company.
What the fuck is ‘fair’ about that? To me it looks like Marxism through the back door. As you say managment has an interest in promoting good worker relations, but at the end of the day the workers aren’t doing managment a favour by being there, they are being paid to do their jobs. Why does being employed in a factory automatically give you a say in how it’s run? It’s not some hippy cooperative.
Okay, so imagine the French state as a large, troubled business with large debts and no profit. In order to continue in business the management needs to make some efficiency savings, like reducing pensions or redundancies. Except the work force is unionised and won’t negotiate even on minor reductions. What do you expect to happen? The business will continue to lose more and more money until it goes bust.
Strawman argument. What the French government said is:“Ok, here’s the changes to your contract that I unilaterally decided. No, you’re not allowed to negociate anything. You’re too fucking weak anyway to have any say on the matter. Have a good day.”
The strikers are not even striking to refuse any change, but to start negociations.
Now, what happens? Either Sarkozy wins his little fight, strikers get mighty pissed but cant do that much anymore. Still, elections are in 18 months and Sarkozy, having already broken the record of the most unpopular governement of the Fifth Republic way before strikes were even mentionned, has to face the elections in a superbly difficult position.
Or, he finally backs off, and starts negociating with strikers that are in much more comfortable position that they would have had had the French government started by that in the first place.
Yeah, all around, Sarkozy’s strategy seems very solid. I can feel Napoleonic chills here. The Trafalgar kind.
Well, one could argue keeping on working and getting paid until the business goes bust is superior to getting fired now. From the worker’s point of view, anyway.
But that’s not the point, really. If the business does need some belt tightening, and it can’t be gotten any other way, then you can explain that to the work force and hash over a strategy with them. If slashing salaries or roster really is the only way, you can convince them of it, and if you’re right, then the majority’ll realize striking is futile.
IOW, your work force isn’t numbers on a roll sheet, and they’re not lower lifeforms. You can interact with them, they’re not naturally unreasonable. Of course, if you’re insisting on tightening the belts when the execs are getting five digit bonuses and the company at large is making record benefits, it’s going to be an uphill battle for ya…
Strikes are (well, in theory at least) a last resort measure that doesn’t benefit anyone. Not the workers, not the boss man, not the customers. It’s a 100% losing endeavour, and cannot be anything but that. So painting strikes as the go to option whenever management decides something even slightly unpopular is, IMO, misleading or mistaken. Certainly, people get fired in France every day (all the more often that reducing someone’s salary is against the law) and the country isn’t paralyzed on a daily basis.
The unions will negociate in the current case. They want to. They have pledged to stop their action should the government even agree to sit at a table. But the government doesn’t care to, because it feels it doesn’t have to answer to this troublemaking rabble (all the while draping themselves in democratic ideals, of course. Ain’t no such thing as a halfway crook).
Maybe they should slash some management positions and their salaries first?
You make it seems like business is an island unto itself, able to make products and print money by the sole fact of its existence
Who’s doing the work for this business? Who’s producing the products? Who’s providing the services? If those 50 people didn’t exist, the £1 million is wasted because you’d have an empty warehouse. Whatever one does in life is governed by rules set down by others. You want to have a business making toys, fine, but there are regulations to make sure your toys don’t kill any kids, or employ any in it’s making. It’s completely fucking fair. What you see as Marxist is how society is run, give something to get something. You want workers in your factories, then you pay them a fair wage. You want to have your warehouse in a country, then you pay it’s taxes. Only someone who has absolutely no idea of how business works would call that Marxist
And what about management? You say workers aren’t doing management any favors by being there only because they are paid, well what the hell is management doing then? They can simply stop paying the workers if they are so hell bent on reclaiming their power. Then the workers will leave and management can sit around doing the work themselves. You act as if management is doing a favor by employing them. It’s a two way street pal, both sides give something up to get something. That’s utterly and completely fair
If you want to run a business without having anyone’s input, fine. Find yourself a nice plot of unclaimed land, make yourself dictator, then you are free to employ children and force them to breath toxic fumes as a condition of working. When you get tired of that shit and come back to the real world, realize that over here, there are rules that say you must treat people fairly despite being a business owner
Maybe the management should set an example and garnish their own wages first?
