Posted on 04/30/2005 1:23:26 PM PDT by crushkerry
One minute and 52 seconds is the time it might take an employee to remove his coat and begin booting up his computer, or maybe to dart off for a trip to the water cooler. In France this year, it is the additional time that staff at the national railroad company were asked to work each day as their contribution to a "solidarity fund" for the handicapped and elderly.
The rail workers' response: not unless we get paid for it.
"One minute and 52 seconds doesn't seem like much but it still adds up to 7 or 8 hours a year that would not be paid," said Grégory Roux, secretary of the railroad workers division of the CGT, one of France's largest unions.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
But like we said over at www.anklebitingpundits.com:
You can't make this stuff up folks. The rest of the article has some amazing stuff about just how little French workers actually work, and how much they bi#ch about what little time they do work. No wonder one Paris daily newspaper had the headline: "The French Don't Want To Work" It really is a must-read article, if only to see just how coddled these whiners are.Meanwhile let us suggest a new "holiday" for the French: "Get Off Your Lazy A$$es And Get To Work Day".
Ping.
Strange that worker efficiency per hour is greater in France than in the US. That is not a good sign for the States.
Source? I don't beleive you.
cite?
It's all in the definition. Somewhere in excess of 30% of french workers are government employees. How do you measure productivity of layers of bureaucrats?(Hint: Any way you want to,).
Compare how the French keep their crime rate so low--Police chiefs are evaluated on the reported crime rate in their jurisdictions--the fewer crimes reported, the better the evaluation. Hmmm...
...sounds like a lot of the semi-sentients that I work with.
The article was posted here on this cite almost a year ago. Not by me. Just read it. Norway productivity was about 33% higher an hour than the US. France and Belgium productivity was slightly higher. All other European countries in the study was below US productivity an hour
It's a little higher, not much. But that particular, oft-cited datum is much misunderstood. In France, as elsewhere in Europe, labor has been made very expensive through huge payroll-based taxation, layoff restrictions, etc. Employers rationally substitute capital (e.g. machines) for workers. The workers who remain appear to be very productive because they're working with so much capital, but many people don't work at all, and output per person (as opposed to per worker) becomes much lower.
Have you ever heard Dave Beck's parody "I Love the French"? What a hoot!
"Get Off Your Lazy A$$es And Get To Work Day".
Amen brother, make it July 15th. After that one year when they let all their grandmothers and grandfathers die, because they couldn't bestir themselves from the sea shore.
Sheesh, maybe all the good white people already came over here and those that remain (with the exception of my one beloved baby in London, England) should just get taken over by the Muslims.
Hey, the Muslims don't do a lick of work either! Soon only the Americans, Chinese, and Indians will be doing any damn work at all.
Good for us, and let the rest rot.
I am proud to from Norway. We have the highest productivity per hour with a very good margin. 33% higher than the US and probably almost twice the average of other European countries
Good catch.
Some people will believe anything if it conforms with their fantasy world and their limited knowledge about anything.
The only true measure of efficiency is GNP divided by the working population.
You will never see that figure. At least not in France or in any French medium.
Who cares? The EU has about 150 million people and the EU and the US has about the same GDP.
That's 150 million more people.
Productivity, income growth slower in the euro zone than the United States
Some highlights:
Unless you can cite data to the contrary, I consider your stat opinion rather than fact.
- Europeans generally enjoy more free time and are prepared to forgo extra income in return. But productivity growth is lower in Europe than on the other side of the big pond.
- From 1990 to 2003, the U.S. economy grew by an average 2.9 percent a year, compared with annual growth of 1.9 percent for the euro zone.
- The average per capita income in the United States grew by 2.1 percent between 1993 and 2003, according to the European Central Bank, compared to 1.7 percent for the euro zone. If problem case Germany is factored out, per capita income in the euro zone increased equally fast as in the United States during that period.
- Hourly productivity growth in the euro zone reached 2.3 percent during the 1980s, compared to just 1.6 percent for the Americans. At the same time, the average European spent about 0.4 percent less time on his job during that period, while average working hours increased by 1 percent in the United States.
- The Europeans lost their productivity lead in the 1990s. Average hourly productivity growth in the euro zone slowed to about 1.4 percent, putting the Europeans roughly on a par with their U.S. peers. Europeans also spent 0.3 percent more time on the job during that decade, while the average American work week increased by 0.7 percent.
- From 1996 to 2003, employment in the euro zone grew by about 9.1 percent, compared to a 7.5 percent increase for the United States. Employment in relation to the total population increased by 0.8 percent in the euro zone and by 0.1 percent in the United States. At the same time, however, the productivity gap between the two economic areas started to open up - to the benefit of the United States.
- The U.S. economy's total productivity has been on the rise, above all because of rapid productivity gains in high-technology sectors and among service providers. Both segments are bigger in the United States than in the euro zone.
- But catching up with the United States will be a tough task. Average per capita income in Europe currently amounts to just 70 percent of the U.S. equivalent. This gap could narrow if Europeans were prepared to work longer hours. Annual working hours per employed person in the euro zone have fallen to about 1,500 hours a year over the past few decades, while Americans work more than 1,850 hours a year.
- The Europeans' lower average income is thus above all the result of shorter working hours, and not of lower labor productivity. The Europeans have been nearly as productive as the Americans over the past few years, but have enjoyed more free time and forgone higher incomes.
In other words, they'd rather do nothing, and wouldn't mind it if they didn't get paid for it. Just make sure you give them all the benefits owed to them. Free food, free medical, free vacations, free housing, free utilities, and free gas.
That would be proximately like the US gov't telling all US workers to give up Good Friday holiday, work that day AND turn all the wages for that day over to the US gov't to be channeled into another social program.
I'd suggest that whoever bashes the French on this point should turn in their FR card and march over to DU.
This isn't funny. The way I read it, I can't distinguish between what the French government is doing and slavery. They are requiring workers to work a holiday that was not traditionally worked and the employers are to turn all wages over to the government.
If this were voluntary it would be OK--but these people are going in to Renault or Le Creuset (sp?) and working and not getting paid.
I think most would gladly volunteer these wages to help the elderly survive those brutal< /s > Paris summers. But being forced to do it without a choice? I don't think so.
The last time I looked this kind of thing was called tyranny.
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