BUSY DYING OFF:

To French workers, minutes add up (Thomas Fuller, APRIL 29, 2005, International Herald Tribune)

One minute and 52 seconds is the time it might take an employee to remove his coat and begin booting up his computer, or maybe to dart off for a trip to the water cooler. In France this year, it is the additional time that staff at the national railroad company were asked to work each day as their contribution to a "solidarity fund" for the handicapped and elderly.

The rail workers' response: not unless we get paid for it.

"One minute and 52 seconds doesn't seem like much but it still adds up to 7 or 8 hours a year that would not be paid," said Grégory Roux, secretary of the railroad workers division of the CGT, one of France's largest unions.

The rail workers are not alone. Many are protesting the government's decision to turn a national holiday into a working day, worsening the atmosphere here at a time when President Jacques Chirac is desperately seeking a way to turn around public opinion before the French referendum on the European Union constitution.

The dispute over the solidarity fund is perhaps the best illustration today of the sour mood gripping the country. There is mistrust between bosses and workers, disenchantment with the government and overwhelming hostility toward reform.

No one wants to budge from his position, and everyone, it seems, is complaining.

French jobless rate on the rise (BBC, 4/29/05)

French unemployment has risen to its highest level in five years, increasing concerns about the strength of France's economic growth.

The jobless rate in March, as measured according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) method, rose by 0.1% from February to 10.2%.

It does all add up, huh?

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 29, 2005 8:37 AM