posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2006 3:47 PM
by
Lou Michels
Well, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
The ongoing saga of the French workweek is an apt lesson in silly and counterproductive government interference in the employment relationship. In 2000, it became illegal for the average employee in France to work more than 35 hours a week. This attempt to create a workers' paradise promptly backfired, as companies with operations in France began to deal with the tremendous loss of productivity that the law required. In fact, as indicated in this article on ABANET, French employers and the government have been continuously moving away from the 35-hour workweek since its enactment. The efforts to correct the production losses include raising the annual overtime quota by approximately one working week, from 180 hours to 220 hours. Other approaches include allowing employees to convert some of their many days off under the reduced hours law into money (this revolutionary concept is referred to as allowing employees "to work more in order to earn more") and shield certain overtime hours from the annual overtime quota. The latest move to lengthen the workweek is to confront the French unions with a choice: either agree to longer work hours by the the collective bargaining unit, or face the prospect of the employer outsourcing the work outside of France.
These actions can hardly be considered a surprise -- most major French employers are multi-nationals that are perfectly at home working in a variety of places, including those where the employees are not restricted from "working more in order to earn more." Capitalism rears its ugly head, yet again.