That Norman is the actual question. The other is that rights are accompanied by duties. Whereby a duty to work is easy to comprehend, but a duty to give employment?
I've often pondered this - if it is a RIGHT to work, then who has the responsibility to provide jobs?
A. It like our Generation Brian, when if you worked for a small employer, or large one even. Contract of employment virtually didn’t exist. You got a letter offering you a job, stating your hours and pay, holiday entitlement, no mention of sick pay and no guarantee you would keep your job, so those of us without or even with perhaps a university Degree. No guaranteed employments rights, certainly no statutory pension contributions by ourselves or employers 30+ years ago.
No obligation on employers to issue a Contract of employment after 13 weeks trial? Period. You were in you were out. I’m going back anything up to 40 odd years ago for some of it.
So Brisn, yes pretty much all come full circle again, except now employees are definitely expected to provide privately for their own additional pension income and if salary allows. Many employed people spend money quicker these days on what the WANT not what they need! Witness some of the reality to programmes about people and their families living on benefits. Kids have their mobiles phones, games consoles and computers. Families all doing their own individual things, not really living a family life where all muck in and help and entertain each other. We played cards and games with our kids, before computers came out! They never played in the streets either. We, the mums, used to walk to the park with them. We could afford not to work, if we didn’t have to or couldn’t. It’s about integration again.
I not including the v low paid or unemployed, whether through health or whatever reason. But the money my sons earn and sien or bonus es then used to get In the city i always did think we’re obscene amounts, especially as many had nothing, not a home or a job!
Actually no, work is not a right. Labour protections are given as rights. I know ILO conventions and a fair enough selection of labour laws as somebody who has a long record of working with child labour. At present a large panel of us are working on children's work, if they have no choice other than to work which many in developing countries lack, to get protective laws in place. Our problem is that there is no such thing as a right to work but that those who do work should have labour protection such as reasonable wages (minimum wage is a recent western concept), agreements on terms of employment to include hours, holidays and so on. Very few countries actually provide those protective measures. The Italian article is saying that citizens have a right to have a job but that nobody should stop them seeking and having employment. Law is often very vague like that, possibly deliberately, but then laws can also often be changed which is what the Italians are doing. If you can cope with Italian, read their labour laws. Then have a go at the feeble excuse for labour laws the UK is flouting at present. Hollande can therefore promise, as too Cameron or anybody else, but actually delivering... Dream on.
And boys......me too as I was self employed for a great deal of my working life
without the safety net of holiday pay, bonuses and all that jazz.
Yes Peter
Left-progressive (by its name) and non officially elected party PD in Italy just passed 'the jobs act' which ironically diminished the protection around work legislation making it possible to fire an employe with no reason and in no time.
The scenario is currently horrifying for young academics having to often switch jobs 3-4 times in a row and short time-span. If they'r lucky enough to get a job.
Economy should be clearly confined to what it does, and politics should be here to protect basic rights of society: including the "right" to work.
Work is actually a right and the relationship with the government and its citizenship is one of having to guarantee work for its citizen .
We rarely think in this terms don't we?
Art 18 of Italian constitution:
La Repubblica riconosce a tutti i cittadini il diritto al lavoro e promuove le condizioni che rendano effettivo questo diritto.
Ogni cittadino ha il dovere di svolgere, secondo le proprie possibilità e la propria scelta, un'attività o una funzione che concorra al progresso materiale o spirituale della società.
Translated via google :
The Republic recognizes all citizens the right to work and promotes conditions to fulfill this right.
Every citizen has a duty to perform according to their ability and individual choice, activity or function that contributes to the material or spiritual progress of society.
I have never had a 'job' either Norman. I was either on grants or direct funding with university bases, two at a time mostly, but no tenure or salary from them. Early on I began doing consultancy work from which I earned a lot for quite a few years, but with spells between contracts and unpaid report writing time actually had a very modest steady income, probably slightly under a salary equivalent. My outgoings were higher of course but I could dodge the system a bit and bank in the 'wrong country' to avoid paying more tax than necessary. I was fooled into believing that the contributions I made in the UK would suffice for a 'full' pension but they changed the rules and my private one, because I did not trust mother state, went bust in 2009 before I started to collect, ironically I could already have been getting it as of 2008 but it might have been all the more painful. Self-employment meant working all hours possible, weekends and holidays were luxury extras and protection was some kind of a dream. But like you I survived and am still doing a wee bit, certainly a bit by writing, editing and reviewing more than when I was field based or doing the international organisation waltz. For all of that, I feel so sorry for the people today. We abused ourselves, if that is how one wants to see it, taking full responsibility for our working lives and how we survived. The people now who want to work have to be exploited and humiliated with no guarantee of security at the end of it. Whereas you or I probably fell into our respective professional niches early enough in life, the poor sods now can be qualified up to the hilt and still have to fill shelves and shift orders at a mail order warehouse. I am not harping on about the good old days because a lot of it was far from that, but I always imagined a world in which things got better. More fool me!
Well, calling a spade a spade, ONE religion, and did you know that the word 'Islam' translates as 'Submission'? sort of sums it up really.
Shirley,
one of the best expressions was given by Teddy Roosevelt when asked to describe his foreign policy said 'speak softly but carry a big stick!'
Brian, isn't that strange, but in the whole of my working career from 1955-2005 I never had one spec. of work guarantee or employment protection. To be honest it never even occurred to me in the early days as it just didn't exist, and as time went on I educated myself largely, took whatever work I had seriously (and took bouts of unemployment, or sans work even MORE seriously!)
In the latter days of being self-employed the same rules applied. How the Hell did I make it through all those years in all those countries without what everybody demands today as essential, vital and their due? Funny how ''a fair days work for a fair days pay' seems to have passed into the mists of time.
Every little bit helps....It is not just about voters and leaders.
There are ways in which we can help ourselves too!
I think those days of gullible voters are just about done...
The massage is the UK model with a French accent, so people think it is different. Oh yeah?
Hollande has already made it clear how unemployment wll fall. More people will have, just as in the previous regimes access to more courses. Hollande and Sarkozy stopped many of the courses to save money so things like the old CES will come back but under a different guise no doubt. This 'massaging' is always a handy way to reduce the chomage figures by half a million or so.
Real job creation, now that's a totally different kettle of poissons ! That will only start to happen when growth starts to hit the 2% mark and that is a long way off and with the imminent downturn in the already depressed ecenomy.....well, looks like we're all doomed Mr Mainwaring !!
Just as long as they do not follow the UK example of placements to learn jobs (which people probably will not do after that placement has finished) that are actually unpaid labour for which the employers get a grant but without employment protection for the workers (can be dismissed on the spot, no max basic work hours, no time off in lieu, etc) or zero hours contracts, quarter, third and half time jobs that are not classifiable as part time and so on. Then, of course, there are all the people they chuck off official unemployment for often disingenuous reasons. If they go down that route, the figures fall, the discontent and real poverty grow but politicians and media lap it up.
Reducing the french unemployment queues would be a good start Ivan. Hollande is now saying job creation etc is top of his list after three years of refusal to change economic policies. I'm afraid he missed the boat and that is why he will be booted out in a couple of years.
Life may be fragile but having an incompetant government when others are getting results doesn't help. Worrying about stock-piling provisions isn't a choice for many in France as the poverty gap widens.
The global eceonomy as you point out is stagnating so things are going to get even tougher for many in France. Fill your pantry to the brim and hope you don't get sucked into the crisis..
I talked to my brother today, he lives in China since 10 years and say's this year he is very pessimistic about the situation. I think he is very realistic about the current unfolding seeing it first hand.
Particularly the global economy is at a stagnating point which will affect us all, and the global conflicts are just a byproduct of this all.
I wonder what we really can do without feeling disempowered.
First-most focus on our essential things, family, relations, community...
Second would be to have food and essential needs covered in case the recession hits harder. Going bust is one thing, being prepared and have a semi-back up plan is another.
I'm afraid most of us, including myself, ain't prepared enough, neither preparing.
Just look at your pantry, don't want to sound alarmists, but my grandmother had way much more food supply than I do this days. And ironically, back then there was less food available.
What would it cost to stock up pile foods for lets say 2-3 weeks? Rice, beans, water, polenta and whatever your preference, you can literally buy 20 kg of this stuff for less than 50 € and get trough any situation.
We live to much commodity which is making us very vulnerable, the current crises should hopefully help us change from this commodity thinking into essentiality thinking.
Life as the Homus Fragilis.
…to you also Peter x
I actually really prefer lychee and Mongousteen.
The prawn dish sounds good.
I let J deal with all the ' manly ' chores and he knows what he is doing.
Just dance....
http://usforeignpolicy.about.com/od/backgroundhistory/a/Leverage-Is…
In foreign policy and diplomacy, nations must negotiate from a position of power – or at least have some diplomatic leverage – for their policy initiatives to be effective. That principle applied to the young United Sates in the 1790s, and still applied as the U.S. pondered action against Syria in 2013.
I say there is No reason why it shouldn’t also apply in Europe and farther beyond EU borders!