The French government is proposing to provide this new sort of contract option - called a CPE - to youngsters under 26. I'm not clear on the details - something about a 2-year contract that makes it easier on the employer to fire the employee, need be, without having to justify their decision. From every single description I have ever gotten from a French person, I get three things:
1. They do not like the CPE
2. The CPE makes firing too easy
3. The contract gives you no guarantee of keeping the job forever.
I'm still waiting for someone to fully explain to me what is so bad about the contract. Obviously, I am coming from an American perspective, so to me it seems perfectly natural that you have no guarantee of keeping the job and that the boss can fire you if he/she chooses. Yes, this puts you a little bit at the mercy of your employer. However, in most cases, employers know that it's in their best interest to keep good workers. So why would they fire you if you're doing your job correctly (downsizing and budget cuts aside, of course)?
Culturally, it's a lot harder for the French to accept that somebody could fire them. This is the part of the whole issue that I don't understand, because I suppose I'm coming from the angle that a job is a job -- if you suck at it, you shouldn't get to keep it. The fact that bad workers are still keeping their jobs in this country is evident almost everywhere: this past week alone, I have had experiences with incompetent people at the post office, the bank, and the office for new companies. This is problematic not only for the business keeping the bad worker, but for its customers as well.
However, when it comes to France, in the words of my boss, "This is a country of workers, not a country of employers." While this is sort of true, I'd argue against the "country of workers" aspect when France is sort of suffocating under its 20-25% unemployement rate amongst young people.
Anyway, I'm not looking to argue about the pros and cons of the CPE. Like I said, I don't totally get it. Perhaps I don't get it because I come from a different culture, so the proposal does not seem all that outlandish to me. Or maybe I don't get it because I'm not familiar with all the details, in which case I would gladly accept someone enlighten me somewhere in the comments box. What I DO get, however, is that the French love to protest.
And today is the big day of "mobilisation" against the CPE. I only bring it up for one reason: I live at Montparnasse, an important starting or passing point for most major protests in Paris. This means that my day of relaxing and doing some much-needed work at home is no longer so pleasant, because thousands of angry teenagers and 20-somethings are setting off firecrackers on my street. There is screaming and whistles and some guy on a megaphone. And now they've started that "oh-OOOHH-oh" song that the French sing at everything. If you have ever been to a concert, after the performance ends and before the encore, this is the song they sing. Same song at a soccer game, or a drunken bash, and apparently grassroots protests.
Meanwhile, universities have shut down and there's constant debate and sit-ins everywhere. Yahoo has even created an entire sub-section of their site dedicated to the CPE. So if you can read French and want to know what all the fuss is about, go there. I think I'll go inform myself now.
From Yahoo:
France has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in Europe, with 23 percent of all young jobseekers out of work and the figure topping 50 percent in some of the high-immigration city suburbs hit by rioting last year.
Students groups, trade unions and left-wing politicians, however, say the contract is a licence for employers to hire and fire at will, and are demanding that the law be scrapped before any talks with the government can begin.
I can see both sides of the CPE issue, really, but I must say I feel all discussed out on the issue personally. What I am really not down with is being blocked out of the university. The Uni du Havre has been blocked for nearly two weeks now, and us anti-blockade students are starting to feel as if there is no hope to ever getting back. We are falling farther and farther behind, contr�les continues have been pushed back further and further (they were supposed to start this coming Monday) and now there is discussion of cancelling them entirely, etc.
The only good thing I have to say about the matter is that they did leave the library open and available to the students, so we can go and work on our own. But alas, it doesn't replace having a real class!
Seems like the 20% unemployment rate is the flip side of making it hard to fire people - if you can't remove bad workers easily, you're much less likely to take the chance of hiring them...
why would you fire a good worker?
You found somebody else who is a friend of yours. You found somebody else of a race you like better. That one turned out to be queer. This one didn't like getting her ass pinched. That one tried to join a union. This one is getting old enough that you can't just fire her, so it's time to find somebody younger that you can fire (and pay less money!).
Firing without cause is illegal in the US because it tends to result from discrimination. Which is why it should be illegal. Which is why the CPE is very very flawed.
So does the CPE really say "The employer can fire for NO reason and does not have to justify it?" I mean -- where is the wording? Because - yes, in theory, that is a VERY bad thing. That can happen in the States, too, but one can take legal action if they believe they are the victim of discrimination. Is the CPE just leaving the door wide open to discrimination? Is there really no clause whatsoever preventing it?
I agree with Les : there are alot of "good" reasons not to fire a good worker. I dont know the details of the CPE. However even though it is possible to take legal action, this is not always easy to proove the discrimination and it costs a lot of money, energy etc..
A bit late, but i'll chime in anyway. From my experience as a natural-born entrepreneur and former employer : most good workers are never unemployed. You dont find them through employment agencies usually. You find them in other businesses and offer them more money to come work for you. When you close your business, by the next morning they're in a new company with a similar or better salary. Because while they were working for you other business owners gave them their business card and waited patiently. Many entrepreneurs will tell you the same thing : many people on the job-seeker lists at the employment agencies dont even show up for an interview. It's too far away from their home (yes a town 20 miles away from their home is considered the end of the world), they're too qualified for the position you offer, when they graduated their teachers told them they could expect better salaries, the hours are not compatible with their leisure schedules, in a nutshell the things who hear from people when they dont know you're listening or when they think you're in a similar situation and sympathize with them. As an anecdote, out of 20 people on a "compatible" list, i only had one girl who called to ask for directions and though she was only a mile away and the road was straight... she was to never be seen or heard from again. And i couldnt count the number of business owners who have similar stories to tell. Needless to say, after a while, you end up believing that if people are really willing to work they wont be listed in an employment agency. They will already be working somewhere. Somewhere farther from home, maybe for a lower salary, maybe not in the position they studied for, but working anyway.
And dont get me started on those who cant get the difference between "holiday" and "medical leave", those whose only goal in life seems to be creating a living hell for the folks who try to do something with their lives, those who consider employers as an evil that should be confronted in any negative way possible, those who consider that the company's well-being is irrelevent to their job, etc... etc... i could go on for hours. I have my fair share of horror stories and dodged bullets, but again, just like the huge majority of entrepreneurs i've met in my life, many of whom dream about having employees from Poland, for example, and not because of the myth that you can pay them less. But because many among these folks dont live in a bubble. They know that you have to work to make money, unlike the french. They're coming back from hell, they know what communism, socialism do to a country, and there's no way they're going back.
I know that i've structured my new business in a way that will allow me to operate it without having to employ people in france. Even if it works better than expected and i need to expand regionally or even nationally, i paid a great deal of attention to being able to outsource the totality of the added workload to other companies.
Would the CPE change my mind and make me reconsider my position ? Probably not. 2007 is just around the corner and there's a good chance the country will sink deeper into socialism. So i'm just standing on the sideline, waiting to see who gets elected. If a socialist gets elected, especially Ms Royal i'm out the door and i concentrate on the UK market. During my free time i'll lobby the US government for an invasion and regime change in France (with my luck it's gonna be Hillary in 2008 so i'll probably be sent to Guantanamo for undermining the war against capitalism). If it's Sarkozy, i'll keep an open mind and see if he can wake the french up and cure them from their leftist cancer before it reaches terminal stage (if it's not too late already). If he can save the french, (i dont hold my breath) i'll be more than happy to do whatever i can for the country.