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http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060...5856-6122r.htmQuote:
"You mean, if we don't do what they want, they can fire us?" asked one young female protestors, appalled at the idea that she would actually have to perform and take orders in order to keep a job.
sigh
Ok. That's just scary. I don't think I've ever been at a job where I could refuse work and still get paid. Last time I checked that was the purpose of the job (unless you work for the Canadian gov't). :D
Hmmm,
We have had this sort of thing in the UK for a long time...................various "opportunity schemes" for young people. Generally lasting up to a year or 18 months, and subsidised by the government.
You can be fired anytime during the first 3 months "probationary period" of regular employment................you can also leave with minimal notice and retain your benefit entitlements. A sort of "honeymoon period". These benefits consist of a "jobseeker's" allowance which lasts for six months, then you have to shovel $h1t if they tell you to.
After the three months you are entitled to one week's remuneration for the first year and one extra week for each year after that. This goes up to 1.5 weeks per year after so much service or reaching a certain age. You also have to be paid holidays outstanding and compensation in lieu of notice, if applicable.
Otherwise they can only get rid of you for disciplinary grounds or redundancy, but if they go for that then they cannot employ anybody in your job for the next three years.
The answer for the French is simple......................National Service...................Iraq or Afghanistan. You would be amazed how many would find gainful employment if that were the alternative
;)
This is what I _love_....
coupled with:-Quote:
The French pride themselves on their intellectual culture
It demonstrates the arrogance of the French... They like to think they are soooo smart but they can't solve a problem that other countries seem to have a much better handle on, yet, at the same time they have those "men on the street"... I guess they aren't part of that "intellectual culture"...Quote:
As the French man in the street also has a habit of doing, he has taken to the streets en masse to protest because no one knows how to find a way out.
Yep, another example of why the French seem to spend half their life just trying to make Tiger Shark sick.... and succeeding with alarming regularity...
Stupid law, Stupid French... Oh well.... :rolleyes:
Tiger~
You don't have to eat them all you know.............there are other frogs in the sea :pQuote:
Yep, another example of why the French seem to spend half their life just trying to make Tiger Shark sick.... and succeeding with alarming regularity...
I still recommend military service to youngsters I feel have the aptitude. You see, our educational qualification standards have been allowed to lapse, so they don't mean as much these days. That makes it difficult to get a "first start"
These "schemes" are mostly half baked ideas, and are just as meaningless as qualifications. Come out of the services and employers know that you have been taught discipline, and a skillset/trade. It is a lot better than 3 years at university for many I know, and they will even send you university or other suitable higher education/training if required.
:)
Johnno:
How sad is this though? The place where, supposedly, the idiots went, (the military), is becoming the place where employers are most likely to look for people who can do the job...
A very sad reflection on education as a whole....
Yes Tiger~ it does sort of look like that, doesn't it?
I can remember being at secondary school (highschool?) and that would be the perception, but by the time I got to university it was starting to change.
I would imagine that whilst you were over here there were apprenticeships to be won.............very few and far between these days :(
Also, our militaries have become much smaller, more highly skilled and technologically equipped, so we need the people to go with that?
For example, I think that it costs about £1,500,000 to train an RAF fighter pilot these days?
:D
Johhno:
They told me in 1983/4 that it was costing them $500,000 to train me as an Air Loadmaster... Ok, so they exaggerated... Probably $250,000 though, it took them about 15-18 months to get me to a squadron and another 6 months to get me "Combat Ready" and I sailed through all the courses - no redo's... (replace the $'s with pound signs).
Yes, there were lots of apprenticeships... Lot's of my friends got them... I still don't know what they think they gain by losing them...
Hey TS, hung around Herc's did ya, 250,000 to train you guys in how to put pallets/skids into a gaping cavernous hole like the Herc's had, with rails to guide the special containers, then secure them with webbing and straps? wow, must have been millions to train me in subs eh!....... :D jk (I used to pull them off, up in Alert, spent 18 hrs riding a Herc once, all the way from Ottawa to Thule then over to CFS Alert, what a ride)
They should seriously consider bringing back the apprenticeship programs, as we in Canada are crying for skilled tradesmen, in all provinces, far too much effort was placed in the service industry and the construction trades suffered.
Now it's to the point for the recruiters, that unless you have very high grades on graduation from High School, you will be placed on a waiting list, not even considered for ROTC anymore, as now you need at least a couple of years of University to apply.
I don't know if it's the standards or if it's really the technology, I do know that just before I retired in 96, you could tell a lot of the kids joining up, were clueless when it came to CDF (Common Dog *****) straight out of High School, without any street experience or work enviroment experience, so when it came time to listen to authority, it was like talking to a wall, or air.
Tiger~ the problem is that the World is being run by bean counters and spin doctors?
A short term improvement in cash flow can be used to buy popularity and votes.............by the time the repurcussions arrive they are well settled with a nice fat pension, so what do they care?
We won't have tradesmen and craftsmen in 20 years time at therate we are going?
I think that is why the EU is expanding into the old Iron Curtain countries...............at least they have time served tradesmen/craftsmen?
:(
Why, yes I did... I jumped out of them 50 times... We tested the stretched Herc as a straight jump platform and then we tested it with a full compliment of airborne _and_ "the Wedge" cargo delivery system.... Yeah, I'm very familiar with the C-130... to familiar...Quote:
Hey TS, hung around Herc's did ya,
But when I switched trades to Air Loadmaster there are two tracks you can take, primarily dependent upon "talent"... The Loadmasters remain just that and go to RAF Lyneham and serve coffee on the C-130's... The Crewmen go to Helicopters... As long as you can avoid Chinooks then you are an integral part of the flight crew... I went to Puma's - two man crew - Groups Air Staff Orders stated that when a pilot was happy with his training hours the remaining time was given to me... :eek: Yes, I can survive my landings... even to the point of doing it in a confined area at night... But I liked the "down and dirty", "in the weeds" flying myself... :D
Yep, it cost more to train me than it did some smelly swab they hid in a tube under water... :p
lol....then I guess cost is relative then eh!, we used to write off torpedo's which cost more then it was to train you guy's, lets see 6 tubes fwd and 2 beer tubes aft, hhhmmm, yep lose a torp every now and then, but not the beer..... :drink:Quote:
Yep, it cost more to train me than it did some smelly swab they hid in a tube under water
What's Black, Long and filled with seamen........hahaha, "We Come Unseen", truth be told, of all the assets that we could meet in/on/under the ocean, it was the helo we hated, we weren't outfitted with the surface to air missiles the nukes had, so for us a seaking with torpedoes was deadly, but they only had so much fuel.....
Those Puma's must have been a blast, anything like the baby huey's, I like the new Apache's they have out, pretty deadly looking... :cool:
LOL... I knew a couple of pilots that wrote off aircraft that made your torpedoes look like toys... So there... :p Your turn... *giggle*
The Puma is bigger and faster than the Hueys were.... It was a cool kite but you relied upon your pilots low flying ability and your low level nav to protect you from fire 'cos there's no damn protection in them... Stay down in the weeds, below the trees or in folds in the ground or get riddled with holes was the basic plan... if you couldn't read a map and the contours you learned pretty quick...
Now... Stick me in an Apache... There's a fun kite... sneak up the hill... look over the top through the periscope... select target... pop up... fire... drop down... giggle... Yep... Sniping... BIG time... <LOL>
Quote:
Now... Stick me in an Apache... There's a fun kite... sneak up the hill... look over the top through the periscope... select target... pop up... fire... drop down... giggle... Yep... Sniping... BIG time... <LOL>
See a periscope....we are related......hahahaha ;) :eek:
I thought the same thing as I was typing it... But I didn't want to give you the satisfaction that easily.... ;)
"You mean, if we don't do what they want, they can fire us? - that's a nice quote, but it's nothing more than that: a single quote from one single protestor (if it wasn't made up, that is... nobody can check anyway).
I can totally see where that quote is coming from, though, and you can look at it (the quote) from two sides: the American way, or the European way. Every single industry in most of Europe has collective work agreements - both employers and employees are bound by them.
Take an example: the work week for retail personnel in Belgium is 35 hours. An employer cannot force an employee to work more than that, and cannot fire an employee for not wanting to work more than 35 hours. He can, of course, fire the employee for not wanting to work 35 hours. If you work more than 35 hours, you'll get paid at 150% your normal pay, plus you get to take off an hour for every hour you work more than your 35 hours. That's the law - simple as that. Now, imagine an employer who tries to force you to work more than 35 hours without compensation - that quote doesn't sound so silly anymore, does it? Under current laws, the employer cannot fire you. Under the new law, the employer could fire you for it...
That being said: I believe that Western-European employees are protected a little too much (unless you rape the boss' daughter, he can't fire you...), but I also believe that American employees lack a little protection (in the US, they can effectively fire you for not doing what they want you to do, even if it's absolutely unreasonable - unless your a minority group, of course... then they can't).
Me so jealous. That was what I wanted to do when I was a sprog. They were only taking on 2 a year when I enquired.Quote:
train me as an Air Loadmaster
Back on topic - The frogs drive for ever greater job security has left them without enough jobs.
Wouldn't the idiots actually want to work in exchange for a bit less security. If you could leave your job in the morning and walk into a new one in the afternoon would anyone give a toss about job security? The Frogs have got themselves in a vicious circle. Employes are not taking anyone on becuse they can't get rid of them should the business require it, so the frogs with jobs demand even greater assurance that they won't lose those jobs no matter the circumstance, so the employers are even more reluctant to take staff on...........
Is the French benefit system not quite comfy too?
Can't we just rebuild the Maginot line but extend it all the way round France and point the guns inwards?
I thought that most of the planet's workforce understood by now, that there is no such thing anymore as "jobs for life"....security, yeah right, over here not only is the job for life theory no longer applicable, but the term full time is dissapearing, so employer's do not have to pay benefits, so now we are becoming a workforce of "temps", here today, gone tomorrow, here in Nova Scotia, you have to work 48 hrs before you see any overtime (a week).
So watching these Toads whine about the prospect of actually working for a living, and not being guaranteed jobs for life I have no sympathy for..."let them eat Cake"... :mad:
Hmmmm!
You are not allowed to work more than 48 hours INCLUDING overtime here :eek:Quote:
here in Nova Scotia, you have to work 48 hrs before you see any overtime (a week).
Dammit! they are not "toads".........that is English?........"Toad of Toad Hall", "The Wind in the Willows".......................we are talking French here as in "Marche ou Creve"............they are Frogs?Quote:
So watching these Toads whine about the prospect of actually working for a living
n'est pas?
:D
Sorry nihil, I am so used to referring to "Quebecer's" as toads, that I (wrongly) assumed those other French types were the same....my bad... :p
Yeah, I love how they determine this stuff over here, I know people who are considered "part time" yet can put in 40 + hrs a week, but because they are termed part time the employer is not obligated to pay the benefits they would have to if the worker was on the record as "full time", heck some of these places will even allow the employee to work extra hrs for "overtime" but still only consider them "part time".
Also I believe ( I am Salary so it's 7/24 366), the reason these employers restrict it to "part time" is so they can avoid paying the higher premiums for Worker's Comp or Employment Insurance and the Canada Pension Plan, they even complain when the Gov't up's the minimum wage (currently at $7.25/hr), espescially the food/services groups (bars/restaraunts/MacDonalds etc), yet I have yet to see anyone actually exist on $7.25/hr.....
$7.25/hr x 40 =$290.00 x 52 = $15080 gross (gross)...let's see minimum amt for sitting room a week is $100.00 x 52 =$5200.00 yr, groceries for a single person, hmmm $250.00 Mth x 12 = $3000.00 transportation $4.00 per day (Bus) or $80.00 mth x 12 =$960.00 overall approx $9160.00, this leaves approx $5920.00, now I am not sure about income tax on the gross amt, what the threshold is, or the usual deductions, so lets just say for arguments sake another $1500.00 off of what was left = $4420.00 this is what a single person would have left to spend over the course of a year for other nescessities (beer). kidding aside, just think of the single women who may have a child trying to live on minimum wage, and people can't figure out why most young adults today, don't want to leave home when they have a job...(I know I have one)
Hate to say it Rc but the article is about what you would expect from a pro bush paper. I would even bet that the qoute used is about second or ninth hand and i doubt that was what was said. If you want an accurate take on what is happening in france that you can read stick with the BBC.
The main reason behind the demonstrations is that the contract, while the idea is good, has no safegardes built in. As it stands today the contract is totally open to abuse. A trail period of two years is totally ridiculous. In my experiance you know if you want to keep someone after 3 months. It is a great law for employers but not for employees.
That's the way I read it too, that the employer is getting off with this, however in a capatilistic society, it should be down to the owner(s), not every job is carved in stone, I think France with the highest rate of unemployment of all of the EU, needs to try something to ensure their are jobs for these same students when they graudate.Quote:
Originally posted here by MURACU
Hate to say it Rc but the article is about what you would expect from a pro bush paper. I would even bet that the qoute used is about second or ninth hand and i doubt that was what was said. If you want an accurate take on what is happening in france that you can read stick with the BBC.
The main reason behind the demonstrations is that the contract, while the idea is good, has no safegardes built in. As it stands today the contract is totally open to abuse. A trail period of two years is totally ridiculous. In my experiance you know if you want to keep someone after 3 months. It is a great law for employers but not for employees.
The only other option would be to reduce the mandatory retirement age, see if that doesn't set off some fireworks...
I guess I have very little sympathy. Where I live, the rule has alwaysQuote:
while the idea is good, has no safegardes built in
been that you can be fired without cause. The proposed rule in France
is to allow this only for a limited time. As the article stated, the current
rules seem to make employers reluctant to hire people in the first
place, hence the high rate of unemployment. What is the answer?
:cool: