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Sunday, July 29, 2007

REFORM UNDER ATTACK

The governments are always out to erode any advantages workers may have won in the course of their struggles; however, they try to present their attacks on conditions as if they were really doing it for your benefit. An example is an attack on the 35 hour week of the French worker.
According to an article in Scotland on Sunday by Elaine Sciolino, French told: work more and think less
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1181162007
In proposing a tax-cut law earlier this month, finance minister Christine Lagarde bluntly advised the French people to abandon their "old national habit".

"France is a country that thinks," she told the National Assembly. "There is hardly an ideology that we haven't turned into a theory. This is why I would like to tell you: Enough thinking, already. Roll up your sleeves."
Citing Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, she said the French should work harder, earn more and be rewarded with lower taxes if they get rich.
The government's call to work is key to its ambitious campaign to revitalise the French economy, abandoning what some commentators call a nationwide "laziness". France's legally mandated 35-hour week gives workers a lot of leisure time but not necessarily the means to enjoy it.
I don’t think working a 70 hour week gives you much time to enjoy your life either.
Reminds me of Matt McGinn’s wee classic ’Three Nights and a Sunday’
Chorus
Three nights and a Sunday double time.
Three nights and a Sunday double time.
I work a’ day and I work all night.
Tae hell wi’ you Jack, I’m all right.
Three nights and a Sunday double time.
We in the Socialist Party are depending on workers thinking for themselves and not relying on leaders to think for them.

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