6 ms·

If American laborers (yes, engineers, you are laborers) still remembered how to sharpen axes, maybe that would happen less. http://www.theguardian.com/world/20

by gorena 11y ago

If American laborers (yes, engineers, you are laborers) still remembered how to sharpen axes, maybe that would happen less. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/05/air-france-workers-storm-meeting-protest-executives-job-losses-paris http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/05/air-france-work...

vvanders 11y ago
Haha wow, taking the shirt off their back to its literal conclusion.
r0naa 11y ago
What a terrible example to support a very valid point. What those union workers have done was unacceptable, and made me sick to my stomach. Also, I felt greatly ashamed - like many other french citizens - by the french government's weak response to this public humiliation. Nobody deserves to be treated this way, and more importantly Unions should never take the place of the rule of the law. This is not 1793 anymore, France is a modern democracy and allowing Unions to grow unchecked was a histoical mistake. There are a balance to strike between workers' rights and corporations' prerogatives. France is the very situation you want to avoid, one where an actor has such tremendous power that any attack to the status quo is impossible regardless of its benefit for society as a whole.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >Nobody deserves to be treated this way, and more importantly Unions should never take the place of the rule of the law. This is not 1793 anymore It's still an era of neo-liberalism and employees return workplaces to medieval work practices (down to child labor and 14 hour workday) whenever they can get away with it.
  - r0naa 11y ago
    And they can get away with it only because their unions have created precedents where they create avoc in the streets of Paris with the complicity (or thanks to the weakness) of the political leaders of the time. This is sickening really. I am always dumb-founded when I read people who would like this kind of dystopia for their countries. Don't you see how fucked up this is for everyone?
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >And they can get away with it only because their unions have created precedents where they create havoc in the streets of Paris with the complicity (or thanks to the weakness) of the political leaders of the time. And why NOT (ocassionally) create havoc in the streets of Paris? Because it disrupts business as usual and results in some small scale damages and such? France and Paris, especially, has a long history of championing people's rights with street protests. From the Bastille day, to the Commune all the way up to May 68 and beyond. Tons of things we take for granted would be illegal without such ocassional "havoc". People that think that protests and demonstrations should be "a thing of the past" because now "we live in a full democracy" are just repeating what has been said all the way from the 19th century -- even if blacks had no rights, women had no rights, gays had no rights, there was no social security, immigrants had (and still don't) rights, etc. Democracy is not some magic thing that solves from within the parliament. Especially the mockery of democracry we have (with representatives elected once every 4 or 5 years based on a platform that bundles all issues together - so if you agree with them on X and disagree on Y you can't get to vote individually on those things), with political influence bought by corporations and big players, and without being held accountable for not keeping on their promises (you just get not to vote for them at the end of their term). Democracy needs active citizen participation, and protests and demonstrations are one such method of making people's opinions heard.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  What plan did the executives produce that would see the worker's being laid-off being ok? I'd guess that France has some type of forced severance or decent unemployment insurance scheme, but did the executives pretty much just dump their (now former) employees onto the street with nothing? How long had those employees worked there? Is management really so incompetent that they can't plan for and manage such a scenario without having to cut off life support to thousands of their former colleagues?
- walshemj 11y ago
  Compared the French famers? I seem to recall not that long ago as a result of secondary industrial action by farmers a town hall got burnt down.

by gorena 11y ago

vvanders 11y ago

Haha wow, taking the shirt off their back to its literal conclusion.

r0naa 11y ago

What a terrible example to support a very valid point. What those union workers have done was unacceptable, and made me sick to my stomach. Also, I felt greatly ashamed - like many other french citizens - by the french government's weak response to this public humiliation. Nobody deserves to be treated this way, and more importantly Unions should never take the place of the rule of the law. This is not 1793 anymore, France is a modern democracy and allowing Unions to grow unchecked was a histoical mistake. There are a balance to strike between workers' rights and corporations' prerogatives. France is the very situation you want to avoid, one where an actor has such tremendous power that any attack to the status quo is impossible regardless of its benefit for society as a whole.

coldtea 11y ago
>Nobody deserves to be treated this way, and more importantly Unions should never take the place of the rule of the law. This is not 1793 anymore It's still an era of neo-liberalism and employees return workplaces to medieval work practices (down to child labor and 14 hour workday) whenever they can get away with it.
- r0naa 11y ago
  And they can get away with it only because their unions have created precedents where they create avoc in the streets of Paris with the complicity (or thanks to the weakness) of the political leaders of the time. This is sickening really. I am always dumb-founded when I read people who would like this kind of dystopia for their countries. Don't you see how fucked up this is for everyone?
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >And they can get away with it only because their unions have created precedents where they create havoc in the streets of Paris with the complicity (or thanks to the weakness) of the political leaders of the time. And why NOT (ocassionally) create havoc in the streets of Paris? Because it disrupts business as usual and results in some small scale damages and such? France and Paris, especially, has a long history of championing people's rights with street protests. From the Bastille day, to the Commune all the way up to May 68 and beyond. Tons of things we take for granted would be illegal without such ocassional "havoc". People that think that protests and demonstrations should be "a thing of the past" because now "we live in a full democracy" are just repeating what has been said all the way from the 19th century -- even if blacks had no rights, women had no rights, gays had no rights, there was no social security, immigrants had (and still don't) rights, etc. Democracy is not some magic thing that solves from within the parliament. Especially the mockery of democracry we have (with representatives elected once every 4 or 5 years based on a platform that bundles all issues together - so if you agree with them on X and disagree on Y you can't get to vote individually on those things), with political influence bought by corporations and big players, and without being held accountable for not keeping on their promises (you just get not to vote for them at the end of their term). Democracy needs active citizen participation, and protests and demonstrations are one such method of making people's opinions heard.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
jsprogrammer 11y ago
What plan did the executives produce that would see the worker's being laid-off being ok? I'd guess that France has some type of forced severance or decent unemployment insurance scheme, but did the executives pretty much just dump their (now former) employees onto the street with nothing? How long had those employees worked there? Is management really so incompetent that they can't plan for and manage such a scenario without having to cut off life support to thousands of their former colleagues?
walshemj 11y ago
Compared the French famers? I seem to recall not that long ago as a result of secondary industrial action by farmers a town hall got burnt down.