Before the French government legislated to reduce the working week to 35 hours in 1998, various FWers though this was a splendid thing. However, I ventured the opinion on this List that it wouldn't really create any more jobs and, in fact, because it made the unit costs of employing people greater, then small businesses would be heavily penalised. I also wrote much more recently (yesterday, in fact) that France is gradually sinking into an economic morass because of bureaucracy and that it might collapse in future years as spectacularly as Soviet Russia did in 1992. The following article in today's /Sunday Times /bears witness to the problems brought about by regulation in matters that shouldn't concern governments.[snip]
>>>> FRENCH WORK UP ANGST AT 35-HOUR WEEK
The French now have more leisure hours but less money to spend. Critics say the 35-hour week is fostering a disdain for work and hastening economic decline
Matthew Campbell
Is the straw man a red herring?
Let's grant that a police-enforced 35 hour week is not the answer (although it might be less of a problem or even a benefit if other countries all played according to the same rules).
How do we protect against the very real problems of persons being expected to work much longer than 40 hours? At least back in the 1980s, Japanese salarymen tried to avoid leaving the office at a normal hour even if thay had no real work to do because those who did not work long hours were stigmatized. And here in the U.S.A., a combination of paid and unpaid overtime (some more or less genuinely voluntary, but a lot involuntary) is expected in many jobs today.
How do you suggest we address over-work, and at least here in America today, its uncertainties, which result in persons becoming anxious and depressed as well as being worn out?
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
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