This is not designed to do anything except make people work for less money.
It's about firing people to avoid them getting rights or seniority.
OK, I don't get that. What rights are we talking about? I don't get the bit about seniority either. Are you talking ageism?
The way I read what you wrote - I might be wrong - would be to imply that, if I work at a job for, say, 1 year, then you can't fire me anymore, so instead you'll fire me on Day 364, right?
But that's a perverse (in the statistical sense of the term) distortion of what should be a naturally balanced system. If I knew I could fire you on day 542, for example, then I wouldn't automatically fire you on day 364, just to be under an artificially-created limit.
Or did I miscontrue you entirely?
It's about reducing worker power and increasing employer power. It's about reducing the price of labour.
I presume, you mean in the absence of a full-blown contrat? Like a union contract, etc. If there is a union contract, I presume the usual remedies are available: grievances, strike, etc. and a balance of power will be struck. (Which is why I am in favor of union and despise Wal-Mart for being what it is.)
But absent unions, or collective mechanisms, what is "worker power"? I assume when you hire somebody, you enter into a private contract (whether explicit or implicit) that spells out salary, benefits, and terms of termination.
The power you have is that of walking away (I suppose you owe your employer a notice). I don't quite see what other kind of power you're talking about.
How?
I've turned down jobs because I didn't think there was enough money in it for what was asked of me. I wouldn't work at Wal-Mart, for example.
I'm in favor of a mandated minimum wage -- and one that is higher than the sub-survival pittance it's become in the US -- even if marginally, that can have a few perverse effects, too -- and the usual OSHA-type regulations, also.
But I don't see how the ability to fire people make them work for less. On the contrary I would think you'd take less money per week for a guaranteed contract job. That has been my experience, anyway.
I'm not being facetious or obdurate here. You talk in generalities. And none of what you're saying makes sense to me, in terms of relating to my own experience.
Please understand that you're not getting your point across.
I could understand defending the RMI and unemployment benefits and the healthcare system and everything that pours money back to help society take care of its poorest elements, but I'm afraid I don't get what seems to me an almost-neurotic French national obsession with controlling employment.
That there is not enough jobs, I get. Then create some. I'd understand State jobs à la TVA. (In fact the US desperately need a new TVA right now; FDR where art thou?)
While we're on the topic of what I don't get, I don't understand the "allocations familiales" especially for well-off people. If I'm the Duchess of Moneybags with 5 kids, I get money from the State, right?
Maybe someone can take a turn at explaining that one for me?
If I'm the Duchess of Moneybags with 5 kids, I get money from the State, right?
I suspect that's similar to the children's allowance here. It's not about the parents, it's about the kids. Part of the reason is to work around the situation where himself comes home and doesn't give her any money to do the housekeeping, though I suppose that's a bit anachronistic you'd hear the occasional story of middle-class families were the only money the wife had control over was the children's allowance. But at base the money is being paid to support the kids, not the parents, so the parents' circumstances are irrelevant. It's also probably cheaper to do it that way than try to administer the means testing - I think that's what studies here suggest anyway. The tax system in Europe generally takes enough money from the rich that it's not important anyway.
While we're on the topic of what I don't get, I don't understand the "allocations familiales" especially for well-off people. If I'm the Duchess of Moneybags with 5 kids, I get money from the State, right? Maybe someone can take a turn at explaining that one for me?
It's part of a consistent pro-family policy for the past century. Families with kids are helped, full stop. Means testing was a Reagan/Thatcher invention. It may make apparent sense, but it sends the wrong signal.
You get a fixed amount per kid (more for later kids in large families), so it helps the poor a lot more, and it's simple, consistent, and it sends a clear message all around (together with other policy items that help). Considering the amount,s I'm not even usre you'd same much by means testing, and you'd create a detestable precedent. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
I never bought into the cliched notion of the "welfare queen" and I don't think most women actually had more kids just to collect more money, though I suppose it might be true in some cases. I haven't studied the issue, honestly.
Giving money to rich families escape me. You do have means-testing with RMI and all kinds of warranted and useful social subsidies already, I really don't see the "detestable precedent" / "wrong precedent".
The notion that the President of, say, TOTAL gets allocations if he has 5 children baffles me.
Except that all these things are being eroded in the name of who knows what. guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
Still seems odd to me.
Hmm.
It does show that we take a lot of things for granted until confronted with an outsider's viewpoint.
I stand chastised.
