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Tuesday, August 20, 2002
02:24 a.m.
France: '35 hour week' and grown-up politics
The 'end of ideology' - or politics as [murky and twisted] as usual?
'Les trente-cinq heures' was Jospin's Big Idea, just as health care reform was Clinton's. Jospin's achieved legislative fruition, whilst Bill got other kinds of relief.
Fixing a maximum working week has always been a radical, even socialist, policy, surely? The ill-fate Front Populaire government in the mid-30s tried to get France out of the Depression by doing so (with conspicuous lack of success). 'Not a minute on the day' was part of the rallying cry of British miners' leader A J Cook in 1926, before and after the ill-fated General Strike.
But Jospin's law (generally known as the 'lois Aubry', after the minister who introduced them) was - not so much. Like TR and the trusts according to Mr Dooley (lengthy extract here [1]), Jospin and his law were ambivalent: 35 hours undoubtedly was a boon to many; jobs were created (ballpark 250,000, though how many due to the law and how many to growth is disputed).
But, because the law necessitated the renegotiations of agreements with unions, employers won, too. In particular, in the flexibility of an annualised system of working hours, with the potential for demanding extra hours (with 'time-and-a-quarter' overtime or days off in lieu) in busy periods. (And, in some industries, getting any sensible agreement out of the unions on any subject was accounted a minor miracle!)
('Flexibilité' is something of a dirty word in French union circles: their base notions of industrial relations often seem as out of date as those of British unions in the 1970s. Arguably, the 'lois Aubry' were more about twisting unions' arms than employers'.)
Most particularly, the law has been regressive in its impact as between employees: it's been the managerial grades who've done best out of it. Particularly young women with families:
'"Les femmes cadres sont bien les plus satisfaites de la RTT ['reduction du temps de travail'] parce qu'elles sont, de toutes les catégories, celles sur qui pesaient le plus fortement les contraintes professionnelles et familiales", notent les chercheurs Dominique Méda et Renaud Orain dans la revue Travail et emploi (avril 2002).'
Moreover, market forces have kept managerial salaries buoyant, whilst manual workers have supposedly had to suffer pay freezes to compensate for the benefit of the law:
"....la plupart [workers] ont dû accepter un « gel » de leur rémunération. « Ce qui revient à abandonner 2,2 % de pouvoir d'achat », après des années déjà de vaches maigres."
So the new Raffarin government has a problem: to be seen to do something to 'deal with' the key Jospin legacy in employment law (much decried by the Right when in opposition); but not to spoil what, on balance, has turned out in practice to be a 'cushy billet' for employers and managerial grades (ie, heartland supporters of the right).
Hence the thoroughly superficial proposals of employment minister Fillon:
"L'enjeu, explique-t-on dans l'entourage de François Fillon, est parfois plus « symbolique » qu'économique."
It's a million miles away from the 'black hats/white hats' idea of politics so often portrayed in the media (with the greatest degree of oleaginous sanctimony in 'The West Wing', of course) - and worthy of note for that alone.
[1] "'On wan hand I wud stamp thim undher fut; on th' other hand not so fast.":
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