Why do they fall over themselves to stop people working in this country? ... This country wants to outlaw everything – drink, fags and now work.

Jean-Pierre Berthe,
owner of Café Le Rostand
6 place Edmond-Rostand, 6ème arrondissement, Paris
PARIS October 20, 2006 (Telegraph)

Ah, M. Berthe, there are few things as tenacious as a failed idea. And there is nothing more tenacious than a failed idea enshrined in bad law.

LES 35 HEURES, PEUT ETRE,
MAIS A QUEL PRIX POUR LES SALARIES ?
PARIS 20 octobre 2006 (UMIH)

The idea behind the French 35-hour work week is simple as it is naïf. The less you work, the more work there is. If a 70-employee work force has its 40-hour work week reduced to 35-hours, there is now more work for 10 new hires. Why doesn't this work? Well, mes amis, because once this muzzy idea is transferred from the cocktail napkin to the working world the necessary underlying assumptions fail.

First there is the assumption that work hours are fungible, that productivity is uniform and that all workers are uniformly efficient -- that the 5 hours not worked by a seasoned hire will be worked as productively as a new hire. It completely ignores added costs in administration, recruitment, orientation, training, taxes, benefits, physical plant, and integration. But government overlooks these very same trifles in the conduct of its own affairs, so please, no looks of surprise.

It then assumes that 35 hours is suited to businesses. There is a reason the modern world has settled on an 8-hour work shift. It is exactly a third of a 24-hour day, which allows businesses to run three full shifts without significant stoppage. An 8-hour shift provides for two uninterrupted 3½ hour work stretches, which, aside from piece-work, is just enough to do meaningful work. But businesses best sort out the work model that suits them -- not socialists inventing ideal norms for all.

Lastly it assumes that there is a ready pool of skilled workers waiting to fill in for the 5-hour deficit in the work week. In the case here, France's robust tourism keeps qualified service and wait staff in demand. Consequently this sector is near full-employment, its available labor scarce.

CAFÉ CULTURE FACING A CUT IN OPENING TIMES

PARIS October 20, 2006 (TimesOnline) - Owners of the country’s 200,000 eating and drinking establishments have been ordered to apply the 35-hour week that guarantees most French workers Europe’s shortest working time. The bosses must also pay retroactive overtime for the past 22 months.

The decision by the Conseil d’État, the highest civil court, was greeted with horror by owners and many of the trade’s 800,000 employees amid warnings that it could force small establishments out of business. They appealed for state action to soften the impact.

Under a 2004 accord, catering workers were allowed to work a 39-hour week. This had already led to restaurants cutting costs by such measures as turning away lunchtime customers who arrive after 1.30pm.

The court has annulled the accord. Applying the 35-hour week could force restaurants to close three days a week or refuse a second dinner sitting, owners said.

... André Daguin, President of UMIH [Union des métiers et des Industries de l'Hôtellerie], the main catering owners’ association, said that the council had “managed to transform a win-win agreement into a lose-lose situation” that would penalise workers as well as owners.

Steep payroll charges and tight regulations have caused a shortage of waiters and cooks in the catering establishments that help France to attract more visitors than any other nation.

The council took up the case on an appeal by the CFDT [Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail], one of the big three trade union federations, which was not part of the 2004 pact. The union insisted yesterday that waiting staff would be better off under the new regime, in which employers will have to pay overtime for work beyond 35 hours. Other unions disagreed, citing extra leave that staff will now lose.

Well, if the CFDT insists, well... What the CFDT objects to is not an accord that accommodates both employer and employee. The CFDT here objects to the impudence of a deal to which it was not a party.

PFFT (What is this?): Failed idea that keeps failing 5 | Rayonnement français 0