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The advent of overtime in France. .... "Hello reality !" (karma: 2) en>fr fr>en
By TexanForever

Comments: 15248, member since Thu Jun 10, 2004

On Sun Mar 27, 2005 05:02 PM

France’s 35-hour workweek was cherished by workers but despised by many investors and employers. Now the bold social experiment has been dubbed a failure by France’s parliament.<br /> <br /> Welcome to the world of reality, froggies. .... So much for Socialism and "Hello Capitalism."<br /> <br />

The advent of overtime in France

LAURENCE FROST, AP Business Writer 03/27/2005

PARIS -- France’s 35-hour workweek was cherished by workers but despised by many investors and employers. Now the bold social experiment has been dubbed a failure by France’s parliament.

The law gave many people more time for their families, for vacation and for plain relaxation -- but it fueled anxiety about declining competitiveness and soaring unemployment, currently at 10 percent. It also failed to live up to its original promise: creating millions of jobs by forcing employers to hire more people.

The conservative-dominated National Assembly, France’s lower house, voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to adopt a government-backed bill that significantly waters down the 35-hour week legislation, a legacy of the former Socialist administration. It opens the door for companies to increase employees’ working time, in exchange for better pay.
President Jacques Chirac’s government has tried to sell the reform to voters as an opportunity to "Work More to Earn More," but many remain unconvinced.

Almost a million people joined strikes and demonstrations earlier this month to defend the 35-hour week and protest other perceived threats to their working conditions and pay. The antipathy could spill over into a May referendum on the new EU constitution, in which the government is campaigning for a ‘yes’ vote.

The new law endorses an increase in the extra hours employees can work to 220 every year from the previous limit of 180. It also allows them to go further with "optional overtime" in return for extra pay and lets them sell part of their holiday entitlement back to their employers or put it toward early retirement, training or sabbatical leave.
But trade unions doubt that the extra time will be quite as optional as promised -- especially for people working in small companies.

"Officially they can say no. In practice it’s less certain," said Remi Jouan, national secretary of the CFDT, France’s largest union.

"It won’t be the employee that chooses, it’s the employer that decides whether there’s work or not."
Jouan believes the main impact of the reform will be felt when, or if, France’s economy picks up and companies choose to increase hours instead of hiring. "That’s our problem with this reform," he said. "It’s just not an answer to unemployment."

Left-wing deputies also lined up to criticize the new bill. Socialist lawmaker Alain Vidalies called it "economically absurd and socially unjust."
Most concede, however, that the original 35-hour workweek -- introduced on a voluntary basis in 1998 and made compulsory two years later -- has failed to create the promised millions of jobs.

A parliamentary committee chaired by conservative deputy Herve Novelli last year claimed the shorter workweek had cost the state upward of 10 billion euros ($13 billion) a year. It also disputed a labor ministry report that it had created 350,000 jobs in its first five years. Novelli welcomed Tuesday’s vote, saying the 35-hour law had brought a "salary stagnation that is now difficult to emerge from."
According to a 2003 OECD survey of 25 industrialized countries, only Norwegian and Dutch employees worked less time each year than the French, who put in an average 1,431 hours. In Germany -- which also has a 35-hour basic workweek -- workers clocked up an average 1,446 hours, while British employees worked 1,673 hours, Americans 1,792 hours and Koreans 2,390 hours.

The French International Investment Agency also says the 35-hour law was often cited by overseas executives as a reason not to operate in France.

In order to apply the new changes, companies will have to risk industrial action by breaking away from the 212 sector-wide union agreements that dominate French working life -- unchanged by the new law -- and negotiating new deals with their own staff representatives.

Many French workers have become accustomed to their longer holidays and regular weekdays off, and a recent survey by polling agency CSA showed that 56 percent of salaried employees oppose the reform -- although jobseekers, retirees and unskilled workers approve.

Some economists say the changes are unlikely to have much effect either way on the economy or its jobless rate, unless the government follows up with broader labor market reform.
If France does not tackle obstacles like its long-winded and expensive redundancy procedures, said Marc Touati, chief economist at Natexis Banques Populaires, "companies will have a hard time creating jobs."

Associated Press Writer Angela Doland contributed to this report from Paris.

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