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Jacques Brinon, Pool/AP
French President Nicolas Sarkozy
French President Nicolas Sarkozy
France Allows Longer Workweek, Drawing Fire and Praise
France’s conservatives are celebrating and believe the country can now fulfill one of President Sarkozy’s key campaign slogans: “work more to earn more.”
30-Second Summary
Elected on a campaign platform of economic stimulation, French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s rejection of the country’s “imposed 35-hour week” was not a surprise; still, not everyone welcomes his reforms.
The 35-hour workweek was adopted in 1998 to attack the country’s unemployment problem. Indeed, with fewer working hours per employee, employers were compelled to hire 350,000 more workers. Yet Sarkozy condemned the idea and other elements of the socialist agenda as destructive.
The reform means that the “reference week” will stay at 35-hours, but the law now enables individual businesses to negotiate the length of the workweek with its unions and end compensatory vacation days for overtime, offering overtime pay instead.
White-collar unionists protested the decision in Paris this week. The Scotsman explains why executives stand to lose the most from the reforms: “Under the old rules, employees who worked overtime were able to exchange the extra hours worked for days off. … Mr Sarkozy’s determination to extend the working week spells the end of all those long weekends for the country’s managers.”
According to the Economist, strikes are a French tradition and unions have “an entrenched official role on company works councils and in industry-wide collective bargaining.” But the union protest against Sarkozy, thanks to careful strategizing, “has lost its edge.”
France24.com cited the insignificance of reforms, predicting that they will take time to enforce and “will have limited impact.”
The 35-hour workweek was adopted in 1998 to attack the country’s unemployment problem. Indeed, with fewer working hours per employee, employers were compelled to hire 350,000 more workers. Yet Sarkozy condemned the idea and other elements of the socialist agenda as destructive.
The reform means that the “reference week” will stay at 35-hours, but the law now enables individual businesses to negotiate the length of the workweek with its unions and end compensatory vacation days for overtime, offering overtime pay instead.
White-collar unionists protested the decision in Paris this week. The Scotsman explains why executives stand to lose the most from the reforms: “Under the old rules, employees who worked overtime were able to exchange the extra hours worked for days off. … Mr Sarkozy’s determination to extend the working week spells the end of all those long weekends for the country’s managers.”
According to the Economist, strikes are a French tradition and unions have “an entrenched official role on company works councils and in industry-wide collective bargaining.” But the union protest against Sarkozy, thanks to careful strategizing, “has lost its edge.”
France24.com cited the insignificance of reforms, predicting that they will take time to enforce and “will have limited impact.”
Headline Link: Ending the 35-hour workweek
France’s new conservative government has ended a decade old socialist policy; a reform passed Wednesday “lets companies ignore the nominal 35-hour maximum and negotiate—or impose—longer hours for staffers.” However, Time magazine reports that there is “a glaring incongruity in the law: while it allows employers to demand that workers spend more time at work, 35 hours remains the reference length of the French workweek.”
Source: Time
Background: France’s 35-hour workweek explained
The 35-hour workweek was established by the socialist government in May 1998 to combat unemployment. The European Industrial Relations Observatory includes a graph explaining the amount of money granted per employee by the government to fund the program. These monies were deducted from employer’s social security contributions.
Source: European Industrial Relations Observatory
From 1998 to 2002, the shortened workweek created 350,000 new jobs. The reform bill, according to the BBC, “was supported by the Senate’s centre-right majority but opposed by the opposition Socialists.”
Source: The BBC
Opinion & Analysis: What does a longer workweek mean for France?
Philippe Jaeger, president of the chemical industry section of the CFE-CGC explains the varied reactions to the reform: “In big companies, no-one wants to renegotiate the 35 hours and re-open Pandora’s Box,” he said. “But in the small and mid-sized firms, it will be different.”
Source: Scotsman
France24.com reports, “For all the furious argument, many economists say Bertrand’s proposed changes to the 35-hour week will have limited impact compared with two earlier batches of reforms. Those included tax breaks for firms and employees for overtime work and allowing employees to choose cash rather than time off in exchange for overtime work.”
Source: France 24.com
According to the Economist, Sarkozy’s tactics for weakening the power of unions include barraging them with so many reforms they can’t organize a focused protest, but also treating some union leaders “as grown ups.” With regard to Sarkozy’s approval ratings, “The French may no longer like [Sarkozy] much, but they approve of his reform …[w]ith his popularity already so low, he has little to lose by being bold,” the magazine reports.
Source: The Economist
Key Player: Nicolas Sarkozy
In a BBC profile, Sarkozy biographer Anita Haussesaid writes of the French President, “He’s hyperactive, he’s ambitious, he’s a heavy worker, a workaholic, he never rests.”
Source: The BBC
Related Topic: ‘France’s Antiterrorist Tactics Questioned’
In June, Sarkozy committed to revamping France’s defense strategies, which will involve cutting military positions in favor of technologically advanced equipment and intelligence to prevent terrorist attacks.
Source: findingDulcinea
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