RECENT STRIKES. WHAT’S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?
The ‘El Khomri law’ is named after the French Minister of Labour, Myriam El Khomri, it’s instigator.
It covers the extending of a ‘normal’ 35 hour working week to 46 hours , but cuts down overtime rates paid from the 36th hour onwards, allowing for employers to pay only 10 percent of overtime bonus, instead of the current 25 percent.
It also proposes laws making it easier for struggling businesses to get rid of employees, and redefines what unions may and may not do in the case of disagreements and strikes.
Employers are unhappy to see the removal of a ceiling on compensation paid for unfair dismissal, and the scrapping of plans intended to allow small companies to introduce flexitime.
Another proposal suggests that employees ignore professional emails and messages outside the office, drawing a clear line between work and home.
Basically, there seems to be something there to hack off everybody, employers, employees, the unemployed, politicians…. Et voilà pourquoi much of France keeps shutting down for a ‘manifestation’ of its collective discontent.
Several of the protests, some of which ended in skirmishes between protesters and police, were organized via social networks such as Facebook ‘Loi travail: non, merci’ with an online petition, already signed by over a million people