Timesizing® Associates - Homepage

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Timesizing News in Apr. 16-30, 2001
[Commentary] ©2001 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 622, Cambridge MA 02140 USA 617-623-8080

4/29/2001  glimmers of Timesizing -

• [Finally, an article with data on the precise mechanism by which trimming hours, not jobs, actually recession-proofs your economy - THANK YOU, BLOOMBERG NEWS & LE FIGARO! -]
  French buying more books, CDs, due to 35-hour week, paper says, Bloomberg Apr/28/2001 via AOLNews.
  French consumers are spending 46% more on books, compact discs and other such products as a result of the added leisure time created by the new 35-hour working week, daily Le Figaro reported [Economie section, 4/28, p.1], citing a survey by Euro-RSCG and polling company Ipsos. Shoppers are spending over 40% more of their income on holidays, home improvements and outings to the cinema and restaurants, the paper cited the survey as saying, and are spending 26% more on food and clothes.
  French consumer spending rose 1.3% in March, the fourth increase in six months [during a global downturn yet! - ed.] and three times the gain economists had expected. The statistics suggest shoppers are helping the French economy weather a global slowdown better than neighbors such as Germany.
  The 35-hour week law reduced the statutory workweek for large companies from 39 hours and compensates them for taking on more employees. Over two thirds of respondents to the survey said they are passing most of the extra time for leisure activities with their families, the paper said.
  [Republicans and others who say they are concerned about family values, take notice. Booksellers, CD sellers, clothing retailers, restaurants, the troubled American cinema chains, travel agencies and the tourism & leisure industries, take notice. American CEOs who have forgotten "work smart, not hard" and regressed to "face time" and "24/7," take notice. Investors who really don't want to become experts in short selling, take notice. So help us, the great French experiment is going to prove that if FDR had had the sense the go with the 30-hour bill in April/33, he'd have solved the "Great" Depression in two years or less, faster than the three years Hitler took by anticipatory militarization, and far faster than FDR himself did by reactively militarizing after Pearl Harbor in Dec/41.]

1. Germany looks like Europe's weak economic link - Still suffering from the results of unification, by Edmund Andrews, NYT, B2.
   ...To be sure, many other European countries [besides Germany] have high taxes and often rigid labor regulations. But even France, with its history of tough regulation and a socialist government in power, has given companies much greater flexibility by letting them hire workers on temporary contracts. The Netherlands has become one of the world's leading employers of part-time workers.
   "In practice, things have been changing in other countries," said Willi Leibfritz, head of forecasting at the Ifo Institute in Munich [Germany]. "When I look at France, I see things happening below the surface that are not officially labeled as flexibility but which have that effect."
   [You got it, pal, and those things center on the shorter workweek. Cutting the workweek spreads the work and the wages around, instead of bunching them both up on fewer and richer people who have neither time nor need to spend it. Centrifuged income strengthens consumer markets, the bottom two-thirds that anchors most economies. And deconcentrated income builds solid economic growth - no bubbles. And solid economic growth does wonders for labor flexibility. When you regulate and balance the right minimum area in the economy's center (workshare/workweek per person), you can afford to deregulate almost everything and everywhere else.]

2. Downsizers on the defensive at new wave of protests, by Jo Johnson & Victor Mallet, Financial Times Apr 27 2001 via Kenneth Ellis via swt-digest@swt.org.
   ...This week, Elisabeth Guigou, [French] labour minister, unveiled a package of legislative measures to double redundancy pay and impose other penalties on companies [in profit!] that close plants or shed jobs. Among the purported villains of the corporate world are
   • Danone, the food group
   • Marks & Spencer [M&S], the UK retailer
   • Marine-Wendel, the French holding company with stakes in three struggling airlines
   • Moulinex, the kitchen appliance maker
   • Pechiney, the aluminum and packaging group....
   Employers are already grappling with the costs imposed by the government's introduction of a 35-hour working week this year for large companies [over 20 employees], and with an economic slowdown....
   [But thanks to the spreading and activating effect a shorter workweek has on spending power, France has not experienced much of an "economic slowdown." In addition -]
   Some French business leaders say their experience of the US and UK leads them to conclude that long working hours do not necessarily lead to greater productivity, especially in the service industries.
   [No kidding! Remember back in the 1980s before the US and UK got seriously workoholic when we in the English-speaking world invented the phrase, "Work smart, not hard"? How did we get this braindamaged? Oh yeah, that was it - we cut jobs instead of cutting hours. Scared everybody. New buzzwords = "face time," "24/7." Thinking we're sooo cool while we turn ourselves back into slaves.]
   And they find ways to mitigate the cost of apparently burdensome government policies. Société Générale, the bank, says it has cut the nominal 11% increase in labour costs of moving from a 39-hour to a 35-hour week to 6% after negotiations with trade unions over holiday time....
   [Hmm, first we've heard of these "nominal costs." Maybe they're based simply on loss of 4 out of 39 hrs/wk = -4/39= -10.2% rounded up to -11%.]
   Some companies have dismissed the fuss over [government jobcut restraints] as political theatre.
   ["Political theatre" by some executives who think management is about merging, firing and whining rather than scheduling and getting down to building, not buying, market share?]
   Serge Tchuruk, the head of Alcatel, the telecommunications equipment maker, said Alcatel and other companies had always been able to carry out their restructuring plans in continental Europe. "In all instances, everything that was needed in terms of cost-cutting and scaling down was always done," he said. M&S is seen by French executives as a special case because it failed to give its employees enough notice of its plans to close stores in France.
   But even the most sanguine French executives are concerned by popular feeling that companies [in profit] should be banned from [laying off] their employees.
   [They shouldn't be. Such a policy would guarantee them solid recession-proof domestic markets in France. Recessions don't appear by magic. They are induced by simple-minded, short-sighted executives of profitable companies getting testosterone-poisoned and confusing slash&burn with management of a growing company. What to do with flagging divisions? Trim hours, not jobs. And gentlemen, ever heard of RETRAINING??? Word is that humans are the most versatile species on the planet. Training, retraining and cross-training should be constant anyway in any modern corporation. And it should all be targeted, triggered, funded and paced by the incidence of overtime as hours are trimmed.]
   According to a BVA poll, nearly nine out of 10 French people find it "unacceptable" that a profitable company should be allowed to sack workers [en masse] but French businesses are alarmed at the narrowing of their room for manoeuvre.
   [They have a lot more room to manoeuvre when they have solid domestic markets than when they're in recession like the rest of the world. And what specifically are they getting narrowed away from? From their ability to downsize their own consumer base - their ability to cut their own markets - their ability to self-destruct?! Sounds like they should be glad they're getting protected from their own suicidal tendencies. Three articles below (4/26 - "Analysis - French labour plans pose few perils for euro growth" and 4/21 - "Temps give French firms flexibility in tough times" and 4/07 - "Analysis - Layoff outcry masks better French business climate") contradict this whole line about less flexibility anyway. The most flexible corporations in the world, Nucor Steel and Lincoln Electric, share the vanishing work, and the first nations that do it will have the most flexible and competitive economies.]

1. [Now an American firm with a French subsidiary blames the 35-hour workweek for same level of losses this year as last despite higher revenues (stre-e-etching for a reason) -]
   The Profit Recovery Group International [PRGI] reports first quarter 2001 financial results, PRNewswire 04/26/2001 06:30 EDT via AOLNews.
   ATLANTA - ...Revenues from continuing operations for the first quarter of 2001 totaled $65.5m, compared to $63.9m for the first quarter of 2000.  Excluding non-recurring charges..., the Company reported a loss from continuing operations...of $1.0m....
   French Taxation Services:  Revenues...were $7.9m, compared to $6.4m...a year ago.  Operating loss...was $0.9m (10.8% of revenues), compared to a similar loss...[but 13.4% of revenues] for the first quarter of 2000....  The similar operating loss in this segment year-over-year, despite higher revenues, is attributed to
   • an increase in accounts receivable reserves necessitated by negative judicial rulings in the first quarter of 2001 for a particular revenue claim type,
   • full implementation of the 35-hour work week in France,
   • as well as higher investment in sales infrastructure.
   While no final determinations have yet been made, the Company is exploring its strategic alternatives with respect to its French Taxation operations....
   [If PRGI can't make it in France, the most modernized and consumer-friendly economy in the world today, they should liquidate and go work for somebody else. If they offer tax services to individuals, nearly 4% of the French workforce that was unemployed in 1997 is now employed and worrying more about taxes than getting a job. And French firms are enjoying the highest GDP growth in Europe, 0.6% higher than American firms are experiencing here, thanks to their inclusion of more people in the active full-time workforce by the simple redefinition of "full time" downward from 39 hours a week to 35.]

2. IMF urges ECB to cut interest rates, sees euro growth slowing, Bloomberg Apr/26/2001 11:25 ET via AOLNews.
   WASHINGTON - ...France will be the growth pace-setter among the euro region's major economies with GDP expanding 2.6% [in 2001], the fund said.... France needs to further deregulate energy and telecommunications markets and ease restrictions on overtime hours, especially as the 35-hour week law extends to smaller companies, the IMF said....
   [We've heard of "the blind leading the blind," but isn't this "the blind trying to lead the sighted"? The IMF presumes to lecture France after admitting, based on recent sterling performance, that France will be the Euro pace setter this year, and the 2.0% U.S. economy's performance, where the IMF is based, is only on a level with Italy. And as for easing restrictions on overtime, what's the point of having a maximum workweek if you're going to ignore it?! Of course, France's implementation of the workweek maximum is rather primitive. They'd have a lot more success if they quit trying to ban it altogether and just taxed away 100% of firms' overtime profits and employees' overtime earnings - with a complete exemption if those profits and earnings were reinvested in overtime-targeted training and hiring.]

1. Sun orders workers to take a vacation, by Chris Gaither, NYT, C3.
   To try to cut costs and avoid widespread layoffs, Sun Microsystems has asked most of its 38,000 United States workers to stay home the first week of July while the company temporarily halts production. Sun, which manufactures computer servers and systems, said in an e-mail message to employees yesterday that all but "mission-critical" workers, like those involved in customer service, must take the week off, either as paid vacation or as an unpaid leave. The companys' fiscal year begins that week and the Independence Day holiday falls in the middle of the week.
   [So it's a good week to choose because it's punctured by July the 4th anyway.]

2. R. R. Donnelley reports 1st-quarter 2001 earnings, PRNewswire 04/25/2001 09:02 EDT via AOLNews.
   ...Revenues for the quarter were $1.3B, down 3% from the year-earlier period. Contributing to the Q1 earnings decline was continued softness in capital markets activity, which affected demand for printing in the company's R. R. Donnelley Financial unit. In addition, demand for magazines, catalogs and trade books slipped as advertising spending declined, consumer orders slowed and book publishers cut reprint orders as they work[ed] off excess inventory from a slow holiday selling season.
   Among the actions the company has taken to counteract the volume shortfalls are adjusting capacity to current activity levels through closing of facilities, workforce reductions and reduced workweeks; and cutting discretionary spending....

3. ANALYSIS - French labour plans pose few perils for euro growth, by Swaha Pattanik, Reuters 15:14 04-25-01 via AOLNews.
   French plans to make it harder to sack workers might appear to give ammunition to those who fear structural rigidities will hold back Europe's economy, but the hype is likely to be bigger than the impact on growth....
   THINGS NOT AS RIGID AS THEY SEEM
   Companies' willingness to overlook such rigidities, including France's statutory 35-hour week, is also explained by their experience in working around such legislation. For example, the number of hours worked by temporary employees in France has more...than doubled in the past five years and firms trying to keep their competitive edge in a tougher global environment are retrenching here [among their temporary employees] rather than cutting back their permanent staff. "There are always ways and means of making changes in your workforce in accordance with the prevailing legislation," said..\..David Yeandle, deputy director of employment policy at Britain's Engineering Employers' Federation....
   [Nice to hear someone from another workoholic English-speaking nation say this, not that he should know anything about it.]
   HARD NUMBERS FLOUT DOOMSAYERS
   ...The European Union has made large strides in the...direction \of\ full employment...following a year in which it created 2.5m jobs, more than any other major economy. France's performance has been particuilarly strong - its jobless rate is at its lowest in a decade and the IMF said on Wednesday it expected the country to be one of the fastest growing in Euroe in 2001. "French rates of growth have been strong and it has been a world leader, so whatever the criticisms of [France's] policies, it has pursued them with success," said Joel Kurtzman, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers....
   [France, pissing and moaning despite terrific economic growth, leads the world, kicking and screaming about the "rigidities" of high quality-of-life standards, into the new Millennium. And how does France do this? By "forcing" its whole workforce to enjoy a radical FOUR more hours of free time a week during this era of pervasive work-saving technology (they had already gone down to a 39-hour week in 1982). Hooboy. In the immortal words of Puck, "What fools these mortals be." Truly, we are "prisoners" who "love their chains." We pray for Heaven, then turn around and reject it when it's staring us in the face.]

• [Here's a very small glimmer in the midst of a nightmare, but it's right in the NYT this time, not buried on the Web -]
  Cooper Industries plans to reduce work force by 2,000, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
  ...Work hours are being reduced as well....
  [So they're also reducing hours presumably to avoid even more of the nightmare of job eliminations and of that "giant sucking sound" Ross Perot mentioned as American jobs are moved to Mexico and beyond -]
  The maker of Halo lighting fixtures and Crescent wrenches will cut...about 6% of its work force of 34,300, by the end of the year as it moves production to Mexico and Asia to reduce expenses.... Cooper also said first-quarter earnings fell 33%, led by a decline in sales in the tool and hardware business. Profit was also hurt in telecommunications and electrical products.
  [Too bad Cooper didn't do the whole thing by cutting hours, not jobs. How big a deal is it to cut 6% of your workweek and keep everybody employed in the U.S. where your major markets are. As it is, Cooper is doing a minimum of self-maintaining timesizing and a maximum of self-destructive downsizing, and reinforcing the damage to the American consumer base and its own major markets that so many other American CEOs are also reinforcing. France, on the other hand, is figuring out ways to disincentivize downsizing, at least on the part of companies in profit. See yesterday's glimmer right below.]

1. France to raise profitable firms' severance costs, Bloomberg Apr/23/2001 11:10 ET via AOLNews.
   PARIS...- French Social Affairs Minister Elisabeth Guigou tomorrow announces plans to discourage profitable companies like Danone SA from laying off workers.
   [Notice up front that we are not talking about case-by-case firing for cause. We are talking about mass layoffs regardless of performance.]
   Guigou will give the parliamentary social affairs commission of France's lower house her amendment to the draft "social modernization" law currently under discussion by lawmakers. This will entitle some workers dismissed because of plant closures to 80% of their pay for up to 10 months, daily Les Echos said....
   The government promised to tighten rules on layoffs 18 months ago when Michelin...Europe's largest tiremaker, presented plans to eliminate 7,500 positions at the same time as it announced a 17% increase in earnings.... The social modernization law seeks to tighten the rules so that a company cannot lay off workers if it hasn't adopted legislation shortening the workweek to 35 hours.... Vincent Peillon, the Socialist Party spokesman...said there could be amendments to the bill during its second reading at the beginning of next month. He said some deputies [= MPs?] favor making companies that repeatedly announce job cuts pay higher payroll taxes to the unemployment benefits agency.
   [Sounds like France is really in 'economic design' mode. Glad somebody is!]

2. Medef's Seilliere on labor regulations, 35-hour week: comment, Bloomberg Apr/23/2001 11:19 ET via AOLNews.
   PARIS...- The following are comments by Ernest-Antoine Seilliere, president of France's main employers' federation, Medef, and CEO of Cie. Generale d'Industrie et de Participations SA, a French holding company.
   [Note we're only getting an employer's side of the story. We are not hearing from an employee.]
   Speaking at a press lunch, he commented on a government plan to make it harder for profit-making companies to [lay off] staff.... The legislation "is going to discourage entrepreneurs. Those who are watching France will consider it as a region where it's uncertain to invest.
   [Our article below, on the contrary, documents that investors regard France as a surer thing than anywhere else in Europe. See article below on 4/07 titled "Analysis - Layoff outcry masks better French business climate." Could it be that France is adopting economic policies that encourage much fuller employment, which in turn yields much stronger domestic markets? La France stands fair to soon have the strongest domestic markets per capita in the world, if she doesn't already.]
   "You can't at the same time rejoice over an economic and social system which creates 1.5m jobs in three years, and blame it when some companies are restructuring.
   [Why not?! Those 1.5m new jobs certainly did not come from "restructuring" in the sense of "downsizing"!]
   "The government got it all wrong.... If we want our country to continue to create jobs, we mustn't discourage recruitment by making layoffs virtually impossible...."
   [What on earth does recruitment have to do with layoffs in this guy's peabrain? Recruitment in the context of heavy layoffs is meaningless - you're treading water. The only time recruitment is meaningful for growing domestic markets is when mass layoffs are indeed "virtually impossible."]
   "We shouldn't foster the idea that those who fire (staff) are almost criminals. This will destroy jobs."
   ] [Yes, and black is white and white is black, we suppose. The proposed legislation is not restricting case-by-case firing for just cause. It is restricting mass layoffs regardless of performance. And indeed, the future will regard such mass "firings" as criminal because they destroy jobs.]
   "France's competitiveness is weakening because of excessive legislation and charges."
   [Wrong again. Now that France is controlling the right minimum of areas, it is decontrolling a lot of other areas. Note again the 4/07 article below - "FRANCE LURES INVESTORS - In recent years, French firms have emerged as global leaders, driven by a new breed of French manager...." While lazy managers in the rest of the world are sliding by merging and not managing, and trying to hype their stock price by downsizing - to the detriment of their domestic consumer base, French managers are disciplined by the need to respect their consumer base and the contribution their own employees make to it. This new breed of disciplined French manager is going to strengthen French competitiveness, not weaken it. Weakened are going to be the managers in the English and Japanese-speaking world who have destroyed their anchor, their national consumer base, by repeatedly downsizing and then overworking the survivors.]
   ..\..He also commented on 35-hour working week legislation....
   "It's absurd to limit the working week to 35 hours.
   [Oh yeah, just like it's absurd to limit one person to one vote, or one man to one wife, or right-of-way to the green light.]
   Nobody in Europe followed this path.
   [Except for the 150 years when Europe cut their workweek from 80 to 40 same as we did. And except for the Scottish parliament which is currently discussing a 35-hour week for teachers - see story below on 4/13. And except for Netherlands granting shorter weeks with minimum pay cut for firms affected by foot-in-mouth, and the big Verdi union in Germany - see stories on 3/28 and 3/21. Monsieur Seilliere is very poorly informed if somebody sifting the dribble of stories we get over here in English can easily pop up four counter-examples within the last 33 days. Plus he has little of the entrepreneurial spirit he seems to favor, and an awful lot of herd mentality. He fears pioneering the future.]
   We're not against a reduction in the working week that would be negotiated within companies or (industrial) sectors, we're opposed to compulsory legislation."
   [Well, M. Seilliere, you had your chance at voluntary legislation under the right's Robien Law 1996-97 and, guess you "volunteered" too slowly for the French people, especially the unemployed. Comfortable people who have far more than they need do tend to move rather slowly at alleviating other people's distress, n'est-ce pas?]
   The law will encourage "moonlighting in small businesses...."
   [Then implement it separately on corporations and individuals. But M. Seilliere is one of those famous French complainers. He even complains about French economic growth, the strongest in Europe -]
   "In 2001, 2.5% is probably the maximum. It's still substantial. Still, it means more strain of public finances and less job creation" than in previous years.
   [Whine, whine, whine - "another shitty day in paradise"!]

3. Hewitt study shows work/life benefits continue to grow despite slowing economy, Business Wire BW2393 APR 23,2001 9:04 EASTERN via AOLNews.
   LINCOLNSHIRE, Ill...- Recent economic woes have had little impact on the benefits that companies provide to help employees balance the demands of work and home [according to] a newly released survey of...major U.S. employers by Hewitt Assocs., a global management consulting and outsourcing firm. [The survey] finds that the percentage of companies offering these types of work/life benefits actually increased in 2000 despite the economic downturn that began halfway through the year....
   [Oh how utterly astonishing - not. Could it possibly be that most of the changes were designed before the downturn started and that the downturn took at least three months for most people to "get" it anyway. Good Lord, look at how analysts are still avoiding the label "recession"!]
   Key findings include:... - Flexible Scheduling Arrangements - 73% of businesses offer flexible work options. The most common arrangements offered are flextime (58%) and part-time employment (48%).
   [What, pray tell, is flexible about part-time employment in and off itself? It might be very rigidly scheduled. There's a strained feeling about this firm's results.]
   Other popular programs include work-at-home options (29%), job sharing (28%),...
   [Now we know these figures must be inflated. Job sharing is hardly as common as that.]
   ...compressed workweeks (21%) and summer hours (12%)....
   [Wonder what they mean by compressed workweeks? They may be different from shorter workweeks where the same productivity is not insisted upon. "Compressed workweeks" sounds like you're under the gun to get as much done as you did in more hours.]
   The Hewitt work/life survey represents data from 1,020 major U.S. companies, including 85% of the Fortune 100 and 58% of the Fortune 500 companies..\.. "The expansion of work/life benefits demonstrates that most companies are not viewing this 'dip' in the economy as a chance to cut back on the perks they offer their employees...
   [Sounds like the words of a spindoctoring cheerleader who wants more consulting gigs from the Fortune 500. We have documented a number of perk cuts on this website, including several cases of executive paycuts. And we'd certainly prefer to see perk cuts rather than layoffs.]
   ...but rather as an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage in this continuing tight labor market," said Carol Sladek, work/life consultant for Hewitt Assocs.
   [Doesn't the basic definition of a 'dip' in the economy involve a loose labor market? In short, a labor glut or surplus?!]
   "Employers must provide these benefits in order to attract and retain the best people."...
   [Well, looks like we have a very skewed sample here of the biggest companies, and as usual, we're interviewing employers and not employees so we're only getting half the story - the half from the side that tends to have their smiles branded on.]

1. [more on timesizing in the U.S. furniture industry -]
   Can rate cut help furniture market? by Paul Nowell, AP-NY-04-20-01 0057EDT via AOLNews.
   ...While furniture is not the only victim of the economic downturn, it's an industry that is tied closely to mortgage rates, housing starts and consumer confidence. Following several years with robust gains in furniture shipments, furniture manufacturers are closing plants, laying off workers and shortening work weeks....
   [So great is this reporter's ignorance of business that he has these strategies backwards in terms of readiness of application. Intelligent employers who, unlike Chainsaw-Dunlap-type flash-in-the-pan CEOs, are in for the long haul, do not leap into layoffs (let alone plant closings!) if they can avoid them by just trimming workweeks. Our only specific week-trimming furniture-company examples so far are Hooker (3/30) and Kimball International (3/15).]

2. Temps give French firms flexibility in tough times, by Noah Barkin, Reuters 02:01 04-20-01 via AOLNews.
   ...Labour reforms in recent years have made it more advantageous for French firms to use temporary workers, ensuring steady growth rates for the industry. These reforms have also made French corporations, and hence the French economy, more nimble. Since 1997, French economic growth has consistently outpaced that of the traditional European powerhouse, Germany, where temporary work volumes are comparatively weak.
   "There has been a collection of piecemeal reforms that together have created more flexibility," said Nicolas Sobczak, senior European economist at Goldman Sachs in Paris. "The strategy in France has been very comparable to the Netherlands at the end of the 1980s even if it is not as explicit."
   [This is the first time we've picked up a comparison between the two world leaders in economic modernization: France and the Netherlands.]
   Sobczak said incentives have been put in place to increase more flexible forms of employment such as temporary and part-time work.
   Cuts in employer social contributions and reductions in red tape have also cut labour costs, while legislation to trim the workweek to 35 hours has been accompanied by a relaxation of rules governing other work practices.
   [Hey, if you control the one thing that needs balancing in the center of the economy to ensure everyone gets a fair share of the technology-reduced market-demanded work, you can afford to relax controls everywhere else. We wouldn't call this socialism because socialists will control anything and everything if they get the chance. We'd call it level-playing-field capitalism, the thing capitalists always pay lip service to but apart from France and the Netherlands, seldom achieve.]
   These reforms have partly offset the difficulties inherent for French firms wishing to cut their permanent payrolls. Under French law, firms must consult with union representatives before making any job cuts.
   [This is the way of the future - timesizing, not downsizing.]
   ...Earlier this month, Alcatel chairman Serge Tchuruk estimated that layoffs of permanent staff took about six months longer to push through in France when compared to the United States.
   [That's why France will still be booming, based on its employment-supported consumer markets, when the United States is stagnating, based on its downsized consumer markets. Many American and British CEOs are good at only one thing - genociding their customers' customers with hair-trigger jobcuts. There are still some of these cretins in France who don't have a clue about the connection between shorter workweeks for full employment and bigger consumer markets as a result. For example, the French hosiery maker, Kindy S.A., is blaming its current operating losses on discount sales "and the implementation of the 35-hour working week," according to "French equity preview: Business Objects, M6, Sagem, Transgene," Bloomberg Apr/20/2001 2:58 ET via AOLNews. And we've seen previous examples on this page.]

• Intel Inside the war room, by Edwards & Reinhardt, 04/19/01 19:44 via Business Week: April 30, 2001 via AOLNews.
  ...Meanwhile, Texas Instruments, Motorola (MOT), and others have focused on belt-tightening measures such as shorter work weeks. ...
  [We heard about Texas Instruments [2/27 & 2/23], but this is the first we've heard of Motorola shortening the workweek. Of course, the wording here leaves some uncertainty as to whether Motorola actually did focus on shorter work weeks as well as TI.]

• [pressure for more rest between shifts & pay for non-flying but on-duty hours -]
  Comair, pilots' union to talk, AP-NY-04-18-01 2243EDT via AOLNews.
  HEBRON, Ky. - Comair, the nation's second-largest regional airline, and the union representing the airline's striking pilots [Air Line Pilots Assoc. (ALPA)] said Wednesday that they have accepted an invitation from the National Mediation Board to meet April 25-27 in Washington.... The airline's 1,350 pilots went on strike March 26, a day after negotiations between Comair [which is owned by Delta] and ALPA broke down.... The striking pilots are seeking higher pay, company-paid retirement, more rest between shifts and pay for non-flying hours when they are on duty.
  Under their old contract, beginning pilots - who functioned as first officers - were paid $17,000 in the first year and $29,000 in the second. Top-scale pilots made $66,000 a year.
  [Ask yourself, what market conditions allow this kind of skewed payscale? We call it a massive labor surplus based on an archaic pre-technology workweek unchanged since 1940, plus bribes to more established but still insecure employees to go along with further deterioration.]
  Union members rejected an offer that would have raised the average pay for first officers to $31,500, and for captains to $72,000. Senior captains make nearly $96,000 a year.
  [The pay offer sounds like a reasonable step up. But the only union demands with any long-term significance are the shorter workweek ("more rest between shifts") and the on-duty-determined pay. But if the company made those concessions in addition to these reasonable pay steps, the union is out of line. Some of today's unions seem to have no idea of how weak they are in the job market, because for decades they have failed to focus on and win fluctuating adjustment of the workweek - varying against under-employment - so we don't retain a rigid 40-hour "maximum" that becomes a minimum as automation and robotization make all jobs insecure.]
  Comair says it cannot afford to pay pilots at the same scale as major airlines that fly bigger jets and receive more revenues.
  [We recall that New York City used to have half a dozen or more daily newspapers, but the unions made so many demands, four or five of those newspapers went under. Unions really have no purpose unless they are going to cut the scattershot grocery-list approach and spread the vanishing work by CUTTING THE WORKWEEK. Or rather, unless they do that, they will be part of the general downward spiral due to weak markets, mergers, high CEO pay and downsizings. As it is, they are making a blizzard of high secondary demands that are excessive in the light of the massive background labor surplus and irrelevant to curing the general deterioration of labor power and the consumer base. In short, they are not really contributing to the discipline of management, which has sooo many anxious jobseekers waiting "in the wings." And anxious jobseekers will work for less and less.]
  Comair said Monday that it is reducing its fleet by 17 planes and eliminating 200 pilot jobs to save money as the strike continues for the fourth week..\.. The pilots and the union have been involved in contract talks since June 1998....
  [These pilots have just lost 200/1350= 15% of their company - their group of pilots, and this is how those NYC newspapers vanished - not dramatically all at once, but 15% here, 15% there - just the way the country deteriorated under Clinton. Now under Bush's dramatic deterioration, maybe we'll wake up in time, instead of playing the "frog in the water" - who jumped in when it was room temperature and never noticed in time to jump out as it was gradually brought to a boil.]