The problem is whether employers should gain the right to fire when they want, for whatever reason, and without needing to state one. Americans, I know, will say oh but it's like that in the States and it's just fine etc. But how long did it take for a set of implicit rules and the mutual understanding of them to come into being, and a set of behaviours to grow around them, so that a system like that works in the US? If one of the founding myths of America were not mobility -- Go west, young man! -- would that system work as well? (No, I don't mean a terminated employee ups and crosses the continent for a new job, but that there's an assumption of potential mobility in the American mindset that is much less the case here).
What I'm saying is that it takes probably several generations for practice to settle and become, in the strict sense, conventional, in these matters. And society models itself around these conventions (example, loans and rentals depend on a stable job contract here). Then, you can only introduce change if you do so gradually, transparently, and by discussion and consensus-building. You have to interest people in the process (meaning offer something in their interest).
None of this has been done by the Villepin government. The feeling (and, imo, it's correct), is that Villepin is preparing the way, after a first Trojan Horse called CNE, and now with a second called CPE, for a rapid breakdown of the system of guarantees the French are used to. People are quite reasonably objecting that they will not allow the balance of power between employer and employee to be brutally disrupted in favour of the employer. They are defending an acquis.
I could go on, but I'll stop there and we'll pick this up later if you'd like to. :-)
So if the State forces an employer to keep an unwanted worker, does it compensate that employer?
If you've seen Michael Moore ROGER & ME you know unemployment is a pretty grim problem in the US and I suspect the real rate is twice what you hear, because the unemployed are dropped off the list after a year. (At least in California they are.)
I despise the fact that large corporations have squeezed the life out of the unions, plundered the private pensions and generally succesfully lobbied the Federal Government to pauperize and endanger the American worker, only to enrich a few.
I also despise the fact that minimum wage in the US has become a sub-survival pittance, inadequate to get hard-working people out of poverty.
I can certainly paint a bleak picture of the US emplyment scene. The remedies to these sovietal ills are known: re-empower the unions, raise the minimum wage, etc.
I certainly don't want to see France go there; but despite all this, I still don't get the notion a state-created labor-contract that would apply to everyone.
(It's not that I'm pro or against CPE; I don't see why there should be a C at all.)
The free-market pretense is that the entrepreneur operates in a vacuum using his God-given resources and property to create wealth as part of his holy avocation and that he should have the right, as the priest in communion with higher powers, to act more or less as he wishes. It is only out of benevolence that he employs people at all.
The truth is that he uses his resources to leverage the infrastructure of the society around him to create wealth and that he needs workers to realise that wealth. Because he is in a position of power - especially were unions don't exist - society places an obligation on him not to treat workers - without whom the business wouldn't exist - unfairly. We consider it unfair for him to dismiss an employee on a whim. Need to reduce the work-force? No problem - we call it reduncancy. Incompetent or disruptive staff? No problem either - go through a fair process and you can fire them. We even allow for periods of probation in order to ensure that the employ fits in. Normally three to six months. Because that's what we feel is fair.
If you have a mortgage and a few kids you are not in position to just walk away.
(Apologies for the sarcasm, but I have a bad cold and I'm cranky.)
If you can make people redundant when economically you have to, then I don't have a problem except who defines "economically".
All in all, because of my own experience, I still prefer the "at will" system with a real social net behind it, as opposed to the State telling businesses how to run themselves.
That is not a freedom vs fairness issue IMHO; it's a who's best qualified to make decisions issue.
By all means, let's have the State assist, help, hire, create jobs, but don't direct.
I will however agree that big companies are behaving increasingly like rogue citizens and obviously need some counterweight.
Well, that is just the way it is here. And has been for a very long time, which creates a system. In France, any job (bar seasonal) has to have a written contract, quite possibly a simple one, but there must be one.
It may be that, further back, this arises from a difference between Roman law, more written, and Anglo-Saxon law, which relies more on common law. Plus, as I suggested, America has a distinct subset of values on these matters -- which, btw, though I "get" them, I find disingenuous in their assumption of good faith on all sides, of equality in the contractual relationship, and -- especially -- the absence of a power struggle or a balance of power between employer and employee. The right to walk away, excuse me, is piffling compared to an employer's rights and powers. It may be a useful threat in some circumstances, but, most of the time, the firing sanction is a much heavier tool. You're assuming bosses are not present-day Caligulas? Well, maybe they're not in California, (?), but there's a fair amount of anti-employee feeling among French bosses (deeply-seated, going back a good way) that justifies, in my view, the reluctance of young people to see their early job experience exposed to arbitrary employer decisions.
How would this result in lowering the cost of labour? By creating conditions of fragility and precarity for employees in which they will accept less good terms in order to be sure of holding down the job. A boss who can fire at will is a boss who can fix wages and conditions to his advantage unless the job market is tight which is not the case here.
(BTW, the State doesn't force any employer to keep an unwanted employee, that's not the way things are structured. There are contractual relations, there are conventions, there is jurisprudence, that need to be respected, and that is the case anywhere, including the US. An employer can fire an employee if he can show reasonable cause.)
Of course there is a contract. A private one.
What I meant is why -- other than for reasons of minimum wahe, health & welfare -- should it be a STATE-created contract.
Why on Earth is the French Government telling employers what to do with their "Premieres Embauches"?
It's not telling the employer what to do. It's allowing the employer to do things that were not previously accepted, by law, by the jurisprudence. It's saying: from now on, if you hire someone under 26, you're free to fire them at will over a two-year period. This kind of regulation is requested by the bosses' unions. (Though they're backing off from this one now, because it's become a hot potato).
It's not an easy thing to explain without it looking like I'm (me or another) being defensive about a system that isn't necessarily all good (though I must say that Americans can be very aggressive/out-of-hand dismissive about this subject, and that kindles defensive responses). My point, as someone who came from another country with an Anglo-Saxon common law basis, and who had trouble at first understanding what was going on here, is that other ways of doing things exist, and there isn't necessarily a right and a wrong about it.
And don't let me get started about whether it has been demonstrated that the American way of handling contractual relations between employer and employee has been productive of good, equitable results across society. (No, the French way hasn't either, but it does provide lower-level employees with more security, and develops a minimum net of solidarity).
the consequence of this absurd system is that no one hires in france if they can possibly hire any where else.
if there were more jobs in france, losing one due to the whim of an irrational boss would be counted, as it is in the US, as a blessing
Also, macro-economic conclusions based on 2-3 years of data are hardly to be recommended.
Unemployment is not going down so much because the active population has been growing faster than elsewhere, so the economy needs to create more jobs just to stay in place. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
But yes, as the cycle turns, maybe we'll end up with differnet comparatives (and then it will be blamed on the "cycle", not on the superior French model...) In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
