They like to riot and they love to strike. The question is whether or not they ever understand what it is they are demonstrating against.
This time round, young people in France have been protesting a new labour law which is, in fact, designed to help them get work. The law is the Contrat Premiere Embauche – the First Employment Contract, and it is meant to reduce the risks for employers in hiring young, unproved workers, thereby making it more attractive for them to do so.
To be fair to the protesting students, there is potential for abuse of the law by employers. However, because it is difficult to fire workers in France, employers hesitate to hire young people who have not yet shown that they can contribute to a business.
Generally, new hires in France have a trial period of one to three months, during which time they can be let go without notice or a reason. The Contrat Premiere Embauche applies to under-26s and involves a two-year trial period, during which no reason for dismissal need be given. After one month of employment, a two-week notice period is required, and after six months, the notice period becomes one month. Because of the protests, the government has offered a compromise of cutting the trial period down to one year and requiring employers to give a reason for any dismissal.
The idea behind the law is to make it easier for young people to get jobs. In Europe, the average rate of unemployment for 18-25 year olds is 9.6%. In France it is over 20%. It seems to me that the students who are not going to their lectures in protest of the new law simply have no understanding of the way the real world works.
As the Russians like to say, France is the only truly successful communist country in the world.
6 comments:
why not extend the right to the employers for anyone they hire? you have to admit they would never propose such a law for people 50 or older and those are the people who are really lacking basic skills in todays work environment. id be willing to say our office, as a whole, spends more than 20 hours a week helping our boss just figure out computer issues.
SS, I believe you that there is a problem in your office, but I have not seen that people over 50 as a group lack basic skills. And at any rate, that is not the point of this law. The point of this law is to reduce the unemployment rate amongst the youth of France, the age group that needs the most help there. There is also age discrimination everywhere in the world, which is its own problem, but older people in Europe tend to stay in jobs and so there are not as many of them seeking employment or out of work.
The problem with firing without cause is that it ALWAYS looks like the employee's fault. The employer can abuse an employee in any manner he/she sees fit and then fire that employee without cause and yet it is that employee that has to explain at his/her next interview why they were fired.
Im not against being able to freely fire employees with cause. I think the US needs to apply the some of the same laws it has for non-exempt employees to exempt employees.
The current work environment here in the US is one in that the ability to "multi-task" is supposed to be some badge of honor. Basically what it means is that jobs that used to have 3-4 duties now have 10-20. You throw someone into this environment and I guarentee you can find cause to fire them.
I think there are some simularities between white collar America now and blue collar america before unionization. If an hourly worker was ever forced to 70 hours a week without extra compensation it would be illegal. That isnt the case with salaried workers.
So what happens when a white collar worker says "im not working Saturday this week"? They are fired for just cause.
A exempt (salaried) employee in a right to work state has no rights.
Im not familar with what is going on in France but I would like to think that they are little ticked that they are allowing a certain age group to be vunerable to labor laws while others just because of their age are protected.
Update: Chirac has given in to the students and the CPE has been scrapped. The government will look for a different way to help the unemployed youth of France.
I was talking with a Frenchman about the issue last night, and he seemed to believe that the law was bad because employers would abuse the ability to be able to fire employees after two years so that they could again hire young cheap labour. Now we'll never know.
The students will eventually come to their senses and pack up and come to Little France aka Quebec just as the French before them have caught on.
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