35 hour week
25/10/06 13:24 Filed in: France
A cafe owner says:
It's a bit mystifying that workers can't negotiate to work a longer day in exchange for more holidays. A 39-hour week seems to come up short of brutally oppressive working conditions. You know, just a little short.
Someone in the linked article claims cafes everywhere will be complianing to voters about this law...but it's hard to believe in every cafe les garcons will be telling their customers they want to work longer.
When Adam Gopnik (The New Yorker, Paris To The Moon) wrote about the 35-hour week, he said France decided to fix its economic problems by deciding "everyone needed to work less."
Last year I carefully studied all the figures I could get hold of on the 35-hour week. They showed GDP and employment figures going all over the place - no meaningful linkage was available in any direction. One reason - a shorter working week means places that want to stay open have to employ more staff; and it means people use their leisure time not only to sleep, but to shop and to sit in cafes and bars. It forces an increase in productivity. The idea that we work to live, and not the other way round, is part of French culture; the same culture invests in beautiful public facilities and grand public art, it revels in food and wine. You can't have one without the other.
"The French are becoming lazy people who don't want to work. But they shouldn't decide for those who are eager to earn their bread and sweat for it."
It's a bit mystifying that workers can't negotiate to work a longer day in exchange for more holidays. A 39-hour week seems to come up short of brutally oppressive working conditions. You know, just a little short.
Someone in the linked article claims cafes everywhere will be complianing to voters about this law...but it's hard to believe in every cafe les garcons will be telling their customers they want to work longer.
When Adam Gopnik (The New Yorker, Paris To The Moon) wrote about the 35-hour week, he said France decided to fix its economic problems by deciding "everyone needed to work less."
Last year I carefully studied all the figures I could get hold of on the 35-hour week. They showed GDP and employment figures going all over the place - no meaningful linkage was available in any direction. One reason - a shorter working week means places that want to stay open have to employ more staff; and it means people use their leisure time not only to sleep, but to shop and to sit in cafes and bars. It forces an increase in productivity. The idea that we work to live, and not the other way round, is part of French culture; the same culture invests in beautiful public facilities and grand public art, it revels in food and wine. You can't have one without the other.
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