The AP reports that due an upswing in suicides in France, Labor Minister Xavier Darcos has ordered all companies with over 1,000 employees to develop “anti-stress plans” to deal with pressure in the workplace. Those who fail to to so? Will have their names placed on “a list of shame to be published on the Internet.”
France
Some stories, you just have no idea how to improve on. The irony and satire is so implicit in the fact pattern that any commentary seems somewhat strained by comparison. One struggles to unify the themes, only to find them so intricately locked in a matrix that to move them is to detract from the whole. For instance:
A law
Invented at Disney World
Requiring medium and larger firms
To offer paid vacation
To make the economy more efficient
Behold:
Rep. Alan Grayson was standing in the middle of Disney World when it hit him: What Americans really need is a week of paid vacation.
So on Thursday, the Florida Democrat will introduce the Paid Vacation Act — legislation that would be the first to make paid vacation time a requirement under federal law.
The bill would require companies with more than 100 employees to offer a week of paid vacation for both full-time and part-time employees after they’ve put in a year on the job. Three years after the effective date of the law, those same companies would be required to provide two weeks of paid vacation, and companies with 50 or more employees would have to provide one week.
The idea: More vacation will stimulate the economy through fewer sick days, better productivity and happier employees.
This is, of course, why French industry dominates the European continent.
Alan Grayson to introduce Paid Vacation Act [Politico]
They have no sense of humor when you try to mess with the much weakened 35 hour work week, or when you hint that they might not even get paid for that. But even against this backdrop, nothing is more acute than the French hatred of authority. True, they haven’t revived beheading, yet, but I still wouldn’t want to be an executive on French soil today:
Almost half of French people believe it is acceptable for workers facing layoffs to lock up their bosses, according to an opinion poll published on Tuesday.
Staff at French plants run by Sony, 3M and Caterpillar have held managers inside the factories overnight, in three separate incidents, to demand better layoff terms — a new form of labor action dubbed “bossnapping” by the media.
A poll by the CSA institute for Le Parisien newspaper found 50 percent of French people surveyed disapproved of such acts, but 45 percent thought they were acceptable.
So, we wonder, Dealbreaker, as a purely theoretical exercise because, of course, we absolutely abhor violence, when Congress passes the “No Executive Left Outside” law, who would be the most likely candidates in North America for a bit of bossnapping? (Aside from Ken Lewis, that is). Would you hold Count Vikula in the zen garden?
Almost half of French approve of locking up bosses [Reuters]
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