02 June 2007

Work more to earn more

I just listened to a radio interview with a French-born professor who teaches at New York University (NYU). He talked about how people in France view and think about their jobs.

I've always thought that most people in France have an attitude toward jobs and work that is diametrically opposed to the American work ethic. The protestant work ethic is what we used to call it — work is what gives value to your life. In idealistic terms, you could say that it isn't work but family, friends, and individual pursuits that give value to your life in France.

The French republic's motto, framed in revolutionary times more than 200 years ago, is Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité — Liberty, Equality, Solidarity. That's the ideal of French society and government. When the Nazis invaded France in 1940 and a Nazi-leaning government was put in place in Vichy, that slogan was changed to Travail, Famille, Patrie — Work, Family, Nation. Coins were minted with that slogan on them. After the war, that less idealistic slogan went by the boards.

When I lived in Paris in the 1970s, I realized my French friends hated their jobs and didn't enjoy the people and the relationships they encountered in the workplace. That was again the opposite of my attitude. I enjoyed work and the people I worked with, back then and also more recently in California. I even enjoyed working for the federal government in Washington 25 years ago, because I worked in a good environment of cooperation and collegiality.

The French professor from NYU added a dimension to my thinking. He pointed out that French children are taught by their parents that hard work is a positive value. French workers apparently attain higher levels of individual productivity at work than their American counterparts. The problem is that management in France is authoritarian rather than cooperative, and employees are not so often valued and promoted within their organizations. They end up resenting having to go to work in the morning. It's just too hierarchical and adversarial, judged in American terms.

Right now much of the talk coming out of the new government in Paris has to do with French work habits, especially overtime work. The Sarkozy slogan is Travailler plus pour gagner plus — Work More to Earn More. We are supposed to believe, I guess, that employees will be free to decide just when they need or want to work a longer week and get paid overtime. Employers will just let them. Just in case that doesn't happen, the Sarkozy people are also doing what they can to encourage employers to permit employees to work overtime.

This is a major battle over the 35-hour work week, which was mandated under a socialist (labor) government back in the 1990s. The theory then was that if employees were permitted to work only 35 hours a week instead of 40, employers would have to hire more people to get the extra work done. It was seen as a way of spreading the work and the wealth around and reducing unemployment, which is still high in France.

As an incentive to encourage overtime work, the Sarkozy government has proposed that all the income earned through overtime work be tax-free for both employee and employer. The employee won't have to declare it as taxable earnings, and the employer won't have to pay employment and social security taxes on it.

Nobody knows what effect such measure will have on unemployment. Instead of hiring an extra worker, whose salary would be taxable, employers can ask current employees to do more work and thus avoid paying what is called charges (for social security benefits) on that money. I think the theory is that the enthusiasm of workers who are happy to work longer hours will spread through the culture and change French attitudes.

Taking away the 35-hour work week would probably provoke major unrest — strikes and demonstrations — in France. Dangling the carrot of tax-free extra income in front of employees is a slick way of accomplishing the desired result, which is lengthening the work week. It is going to be interesting to see how it plays out over the next months and years.

10 comments:

  1. Interesting article, Ken. I too am wondering how Sarkozy's reforms will play out. My husband and I are both outside of the 35-hour workweek system (he is "un travailleur indépendant" and I'm basically a contract worker) and I must admit we have built up some resentment toward the 35-hour mentality. I'm not sure if it was a success economically, but I do think it has caused tension between those who basically "have it easy" work-hour wise and the others (craftspeople, shopkeepers, many others) who work way more.

    I also agree with you about the French attitude to work, and some of it could come from management issues I'm sure. I always feel happy to go to work - -I guess the American attitude is that if you don't feel happy to go to work, you change. In France, it seems like you complain. Yet to be fair, it's not easy to change jobs in France, is it?

    I read an interesting article about the subject in "Capital" -- I think it was called "La France qui bosse et la France qui bulle."

    Pour le moment, nous bossons, nous.

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  2. One of my American friends walked into her office one Friday morning and was told by email that she had been fired from a firm she had been working for for years, was told that she had to redeem her email address, her office etc... and that she had one month to find another job within the firm.
    Far from idyllic, wouldn't you say?
    ;)
    I don't think we want anything like this in France.
    As for travailler plus pour gagner plus, what about people who don't have work?

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  3. IMO, les 35 heures was a big flop - it did not do a darn thing to reduce le taux de chômage. The cost of hiring a new employee (most due to all the charges sociales) was not even remotely cost-effective for companies, so the end result was that all of the regular employees just ended up doing the same amount of work in four hours less time per week.

    As for Claude's comment - Yes, it is true that Americans can be fired a lot easier in France, but the converse side is that means companies are not SCARED to hire new employees because of the fact that they will never be able to get rid of them. So yes, your friend was fired, but I bet she will find a new job rather quickly, instead of spending 2 years au chômage, courtesy of the government as her French counterpart would be likely to do.

    There are many things I like about France, but its employment system is not one of them. There are hundreds of different kinds of work contracts out there, causing much confusion among patrons and employees alike, and the system needs to be simplified if France wants to decrease unemployment.

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  4. Oh boy, one of the most intense subjects in France. Ken, if this doesn't create a firestorm of comments, I'll be surprised.

    I have French friends on all sides, over and under, inside and out, of this subject. But few seem to feel that the 35 hour week actually created many jobs, even if they prefer it. Mostly they feel it just resulted in doing the same amount of work in less time.

    Has anyone seen any reliable statistics? (other than the b...ing and moaning on all sides)

    Interestingly enough, my partner, a banker, who is rather pro-Sarkozy, is not at all keen on this proposal to extend the workweek without the normal taxation. He is particularly concerned because there would be no contribution to retirement etc. And he thinks employers will abuse this opportunity, particularly with younger employees, enticing them into a fragile future.

    I think any Frenchman looking fondly at American political, social, and business models should read Bill Maher's piece, Hillary equals France, in Salon. (www.Salon.com) Great political satire. Well, maybe not for the Bush and Sarkozy fans.

    Great post.

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  5. Hi Ken !

    When the 35 hour work week was instituted, some affected companies decided to take a good hard look at their organization to see if productivity benefits could be made right away. Only after such benefits – if any - were implemented would the companies even think about hiring new personnel, at whatever level. The Socialist theoreticians behind the new law never thought about this when they came up with it.

    Companies reorganized, improved production efficiency … and found that they didn't need to hire new help, at all, if the workload remained the same. This turned out to be quite a surprise to the Socialist legislators, many of whom had never had to work in real life. (sigh) Some private companies even fired personnel after the reorganizations …

    One other problem about the 35 hour workweek in the public sphere (like hospitals …) that will have to be solved is what is called the "provisionnement des RTT". The extra days off ("journées de RTT") earned by workers doing overtime within the framework of the 35 hour workweek have to be paid for, i.e., budgeted for ("provisionné"). For the moment, apparently, they haven't been. This will apparently amount to millions upon millions upon millions of euros in the public health system, where doctors who retire at the age of 60 can take their accumulated days off as a lump sum.

    The same sort of "provisionnement" will be required when public service company retirement funds ("regimes spéciaux"), such as those at the EDF and SNCF, are liquidated and merged with the normal retirement funds. It's going to cost millions upon millions for EDF, SNCF, RATP, whatever.

    As papadesdeux points out, there is considerable concern about what the "no social charges overtime" will do to an already struggling health and retirement system.

    M Sarkozy knows about the "provisionnement" problem as well as the struggling health and retirement system, and it should be interesting, indeed, to see what he comes up with to sweeten the bitter pills that are coming.

    Judging by what he seen to date, Amerloque is particularly pessimistic. However, M Sarkozy can't reveal all his cards before the legislative elections. (grin)

    Best,
    L'Amerloque

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  6. I'm back in on this one. Claude, it is true that your friend's experience was highly unpleasant, but at least it was clear and direct.

    I know equally horrible stories about how French bosses try to get rid of their unsatisfactory or undesired employees by making them so miserable that the employees end up quitting, which to me is worse. I'm not saying this is common, but it's one of the ways management can use to get around the particularly strict firing laws.

    I think some bosses and managers will always be lacking in the human touch, no matter what culture you're in.

    As for the RTT issue, in his last company job before becoming a consultant, my husband -- who was in mid-level management position --had accumulated a ridiculous number of RTT days. He basically could have taken six months off at any given time, but since that was obviously out, he ended up getting scolded for "not being efficient enough."

    He had been working 50-hour weeks for years before and nobody had complained, and of course with "les 35 heures" nobody had been hired to do 10% of his job! Yet suddenly he was expected to get his 50 hours of work done in 35. Go figure.

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  7. For gods, whoever he is, sake, what can a cultureless, culture busting americans and english install in France which is better than what they already have, they are simply jealous band of depraved vile savages who have raped and pillaged and bombed this planet. The French have,superior independent state education, public transport system , food with provenance, superior health care, etc,The French less violence, pornography, depravity customs, and retain a civilized society based on values that the fake "have a nice day" money is the only god american pollutants with their equally morally bankrupt poodle england free trade free raid "close friends" who hate any idea of society, kindness, caring, genuine equality- only thing is they are undermining the very best country in the world by tryng to destroy France like they have destroyed most places on this planet. By the way I am english!!! vive la France without any bits/yanks- the moderator wont have this, they (yanks) have not a clue how much they are despised throughout this world. Of course Zarkosy, like blair are american emissarys that will reduce France to the level of the mentioned heathen who have always pedaled darkness around the globe.

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  8. For gods, whoever he is, sake, what can a cultureless, culture busting americans and english install in France which is better than what they already have, they are simply jealous band of depraved vile savages who have raped and pillaged and bombed this planet. The French have,superior independent state education, public transport system , food with provenance, superior health care, etc,The French less violence, pornography, depravity customs, and retain a civilized society based on values that the fake "have a nice day" money is the only god american pollutants with their equally morally bankrupt poodle england free trade free raid "close friends" who hate any idea of society, kindness, caring, genuine equality- only thing is they are undermining the very best country in the world by tryng to destroy France like they have destroyed most places on this planet. By the way I am english!!! vive la France without any bits/yanks- the moderator wont have this, they (yanks) have not a clue how much they are despised throughout this world. Of course Zarkosy, like blair are american emissarys that will reduce France to the level of the mentioned heathen who have always pedaled darkness around the globe.

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  9. If France wants a "culture americaine" with fat lardy assed people captured in shopping malls, just buying poor quality crap with only american industialized food to sustain after them after their daytime television watching, bankrupt of any morality.
    Ask them about their universal health care for people outside their gated neo con communities, ask them about unions, how many days holiday they have a year, workers rights, housing, look how they handled the blacks when new orleans got flooded they could not give a stuff, the only compassion in that den of iniquity is a smith & wesson. DO NOT TAKE A WORD THE YANKS SAY AS ANYWHERE NEAR TRUE, they will always defend the indefensible. Three cheers for Bove, it's alright the yanks won't know who he is!!!!!!!!!! Interesting but no surprising the yanks, who were recruiting ambassadors for their global network of evil offices, all of who had contributed huge sums of money to the republicans of course, thats the way they live, if you can call it that, did not know the most basic things about the country to which they were applying to be washington's ambassadors, not surprising of course.

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  10. All of the things in France are vastly superior to anything the yanks/britain have ever had, just take a look @ Gangs of new york a scorsesee film and there you have it, a depraved gun totting, violent, morally bankrupt, devious bunch of savages that lead a make believe life, because the real state of the ugliest country in the world is hell to live in for the vast majority of it's people and the argument that so many people want to live there is what the usa machine movies/television has misinformed many gullible nations people that their people are well off. the usa is sick and rotten to the core; just peal off the gloss, and you are left with very little. France why do you think you are the most visited country in the world, and yannk's and brits have gone over in there droves, why, because there own devils islands have had it!!!!!!!! do what Italy is doing to the gypsies (who don't deserve it) export the pollution

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