French Labor Strifes...Plus Ce Change...

Here's a news flash - the French youth doesn't want to work. I can't say that no one could see this coming...after all, given prior years' laws enacted to ensure that the French anti-work movement would continue on unobstructed, it's no wonder that French students want their fair share of non-work as well.

So added to the horror of a 35-hour work week and - shudder - overtime and potential weekend work, there's the satanic proposition that a boss could fire an employee under the age of 26 with less than two years on the job. Given the onerous inability to fire folks on the job longer, regardless of performance, the French government saw in this plan a way to reduce the risk undertaken by employers. However, French students and others think otherwise, protesting to the tune of 3 million people, all of which presumably have nothing better to do, including work.

The French make GM's "full employment deals" with the UAW look like some early century sweatshops.

Much of Europe is like this, however. German companies have worker councils that essentially coexist with boards of directors, and ongoing employment is also treated as a right. Meanwhile, the French wonder why youth unemployment is at 23%...or maybe the don't wonder? It's not as if the gold ol' USA hasn't tried to help, bring in McDonalds, its grand mac and other franchises that could help that percentage. Guess they're not interested in perpetuating that "horror", either.

Despite all sorts of partisan politics and labor strife in the USA, at least we seem to be a culture that WANTS to work. Sometimes we overdo it, sometimes we're just too "type A" with work, but we seem to realize that working is a privilege that could disappear, not a right that we should be imbued until death. And while we could do a lot better relative to healthcare, pensions, executive compensation, etc. related to the workplace, we also don't have millions of people protesting NOT to work. We also don't assume that when we get a job, it's ours for life. We know, as should all employees in any situation, that by and large, you're as good as your last idea, your last customer conversation, your most recent performance evaluation. And the younger you are, the more scrutiny you might be under and the more "expendable" you might be. That's the way it is. C'est la vie, to coin a phrase.

So students and others in France, please get real. Join the rest of the world (or most of it, I suppose) in taking on some of the risk that your employers take on you. Prove yourselves by virtue of your performance. And give the riot cops a rest.