Victor, Parisian student, protesting the job contract that could have been in France:
“It means that when I do get a job I will basically have to work as hard as I can to keep it.”
Now that the French government has capitulated, I guess he won’t have to work hard any more.
Lets get this in perspective, this was a law that suggested, after compromise, that you could be fired within your first year on your first job, providing there was a reason. – That’s all.
This is not 19th century style worker exploitation, but stopping the contract will lead to it, because in a globalised economy the fact is that French jobs will now go somewhere where there is genuine exploitation. It was an attempt to help poor people get a start.
And think how ridiculous this all sounds if you use being in a band as an analogy as my friend Buck and I were discussing:
Imagine you start a band with some friends – an entrepreneurial activity that is not normally labelled ‘capitalist’. You take on a young bass player who seems to be ok, but its his first time in a band and it turns out that he can’t actually play anything other than what he did at audition and doesn’t want to learn how to. At your next gig people boo you off stage.
Now imagine that its illegal for you to get a replacement bassist without giving the previous guy his share of the money you get from gigs that he’s not playing at, for up to a year and a half.
Knowing this in advance, would you be more or less likely to hire a young inexperienced bass player and give him a chance?