by Agnes a Paris
Thu Feb 9th, 2006 at 09:43:35 AM EST
back from the front page, with small edits. --Jérôme
Seen from France, when public sector employees strike first, and are ready to negotiate only once they have demonstrated their nuisance power, Germany has long been a model of social consensus.
In France, the right to go on strike was never openly questioned. Yet the idea of a minimum service obligation in the public transportation sector so that thousands of people do not struggle hours to get to their workplace, has always been considered by trade unions as an insult to the fundamental right of workers to strike.
There are times when strikes are so regular that the general public is at a loss to know why the strike was being staged altogether, not to mention feeling supportive of the rights defended by the strikers.
In France, strikes seem to have lost their power to attract attention and win public sympathy. They have become a trade union weapon within the range of dissuasive tools they rely on when it comes to negotiating with their "adversaries" on public administration side. The general public's reaction is seldom supportive, they express either anger or resignation.
The more often a dissuasive tool is relied upon, the less convincing it gets.
In Germany, things are different. The article I quote was published yesterday. The German strikes are on the front-page today. In my opinion, the effect of this action goes beyond the German borders. Because it is such a rare event that Germany experiences a trade union action. Because the unprecedented scale of this event reminds us that a pan-European issue remains unaddressed.
There is no need to provide another evidence that there is a pan-European problem of ageing population, and today's workforce contributions merely provide for the payment of retirement allowances. France, Germany and the UK have in common trying to have people work longer hours, among other tentative remedies.
This stance would need to be nuanced : fine with those who wish to work beyond the 65y threshold, fine with those who wish to work longer hours. But solutions imposed on a global scale are piecemeal remedies.
The way we deal with problems is to be flexible if we are to tackle the challenges the future keeps in store for us. And these are not easy ones.
The Financial Times
Germany's economy could soon be choking under piles of uncollected rubbish and mountains of snow as the country's first open-ended public sector strike in 14 years gets underway.
The staggered walk-outs began on Monday in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg, where 10,000 public-sector employees stayed home, and will spread throughout the country next week as Verdi, the service sector union, pushes for lower working time.
(...)
This is not a conflict over whether public sector employees should work an additional 18 minutes a day," Ralf Berchtold, Verdi spokesman for Baden-Württemberg, told the FT. "It is about the 60,000 jobs that will go down here should municipalities get away with the 40-hour week."
Separately, the IG Metall engineering union will start negotiations this week over its demand for a 5 per cent wage increase for the country's 3.4m industry workers. It has warned it would call for strikes if it did not obtain satisfaction.
For the rest of the article, see here: German public-sector workers strike over hours
