"Your mother was a hamster and.....

[JDRoest]

rohrl said:

You're looking at life from an American perspective, that's your prerogative but it isn't "right" and the French aren't "wrong", it's just a different point of view.

There are many very successful French companies outdoing American companies in different fields and the French have a very good standard of living. As I've said it's a different culture.

Erm, no, I look at it from a UK perspective as someone who has run events in France and who has run (small) businesses.

What has standard of living or culture got to do with going to work and putting in a full day? The whole reason this plant is in trouble is because of low productivity, and the unions failing to accept any cutbacks. Ultimately 1200 people will lose their jobs. If you are being paid 8 hours a day, then regardless of your nationality, you are expected to put in 8 hours a day.

If you want an example of this union intransigence, look up SeaFrance. Union failed to accept any redundancies, SeaFrance closed and 3,000 people lost their jobs. Look up Hostess in the US, one union of 6,000 failed to accept a new pay package, 18,000 have lost their jobs.

At the end of the day, the French culture thing is a total red herring, it's down to the unions allowing a deal to go through.

If the French Govt didn't want their feelings hurt, they shouldn't have phoned up an American businessman to have a look at this plant.

[elster]

turbobloke said:

rohrl said:

the French have a very good standard of living

So did Brits in general up to about 5 years ago, it was obtained via personal debt and national debt and the position in the rest of the EU appears to be very similar. Is any additional advantage due to the French enjoying the fruits of a Greece lite approach?

The Brits still do.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/dec/13/britai...

2nd Highest standard of living in 2011. Don't have 2012 figures anywhere yet, but would imagine very similar.

[Einion Yrth]

Mojocvh said:

Einion Yrth said:

Zod said:

There's a middle ground and I like to think that it's geographically West of France and East of the US.

Spain?

Thanks for excising from my post the very point your pathetic little smilie seems to be making. Well done.

[turbobloke]

elster said:

turbobloke said:

rohrl said:

the French have a very good standard of living

So did Brits in general up to about 5 years ago, it was obtained via personal debt and national debt and the position in the rest of the EU appears to be very similar. Is any additional advantage due to the French enjoying the fruits of a Greece lite approach?

The Brits still do.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/dec/13/britai...

2nd Highest standard of living in 2011. Don't have 2012 figures anywhere yet, but would imagine very similar.

That's fair enough but I can't help thinking that wherever we are in relative terms inside the EU, the EU isn't the sparkling place it was once thought to be now that reality has dawned - and even if we're still second it's because living standards are falling about as fast everywhere and we're holding position on the way down. You know how the saying goes - times are bad, children no longer obey their parents and everyone is writing a book, or something like that...but it could always be worse, at a push, and optimism must be maintained!

[JDRoest]

rohrl said:

You're looking at life from an American perspective, that's your prerogative but it isn't "right" and the French aren't "wrong", it's just a different point of view.

There are many very successful French companies outdoing American companies in different fields and the French have a very good standard of living. As I've said it's a different culture.

I look at it from the UK perspective as someone who has had to work with French companies. For the most part the French are great to work with, but then, as in all countries, you meet the one sod who winds you up so badly that makes you write to the PM/President requesting that France is nuked as a matter of urgency.

Take one of the recovery companies in Calais for instance, looks like a nice chap, doesn't understand why his recovery trucks are now being torched on a regular basis. Let me give you a clue, it's not because he's a nice Frenchman. It's not cultural either, it's just that he's a bd.

Anyway, the whole "standard of living" thing is a complete red herring.

The problem with this operation is the unions. They've been so intransigent, so unwilling to change or bring their members into line that the plant itself is broke. Which is why they are asking random American businessmen if they could possibly buy it.

Asking an employee to work 8 hours a day that you pay him and him refusing is not a cultural thing, it's an employment problem where the employer can't get shot of the slacker. It's not cultural, it's plain and simple legalised theft.

The French unions ensured that SeaFrance went out of business for good last year by accepting 0 pay cuts and 0 redundancies. What they discovered was that new investors weren't lining up round the block to take over the operations. In fact, one investor put a proposal forward, the unions dismissed it as 'opening play' and the investor simply walked away! 3,000 SeaFrance workers lost their jobs.

The US unions are not much better, 6,000 bakers at Hostess wouldn't accept a paycut (apparently $50k on a production line was just about right, and truck drivers on $150k was about right as well), led to 18,000 people losing their jobs.

[skyrover]

It does make one wonder if we got lucky here in the UK.

Lucky in the sense that our unions have lost a lot of the power they once had, in our case because we had someone like Thatcher willing to take them on.

Perhaps it would be in France's best interest for a Gallic version.