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Timesizing News, December 1-15, 2001
[Commentary] ©2001 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 117, Harvard Sq, Cambridge MA 02238 USA 617-623-8080

12/15/2001  today's breaking Timesizing news round the world -

1. Delta and its pilots in tentative accord, Reuters via NYT, C2.
   ...that would allow the airline to trim costs as the industry continues to struggle in the aftermath of 9/11. Under the deal, Delta pilots can schedule a monthlong leave while receiving partial payment equivalent to 55 hours of flying time, less than they would receive for a full month of work, the airline said. [Atlanta-based] Delta...the No. 3 U.S. airline, said the agreement allowed it to reduce overall pay [without layoffs] and better staff its different aircraft categories [all presumably reduced by 9/11]....
   [So, timesizing instead of downsizing.]

2. Union wants less pressure on bank workers, Australian Broadcasting 14 Dec 2001 2:04pm AEDT via AOLNews.
   The Finance Sector Union [FSU] says it wants to see the pressure taken off bank employees, caused by staff cuts and increased workloads.... The union's Debi Reeler says staff are bearing the brunt of customer complaints about lengthening branch queues. She says the pressure needs to be taken off.
   "The Australian Bureau of Statistics has indicated that in the finance industry...a million hours of overtime is worked each week. ...Apparently 39% of that is not paid...so it's probably undisclosed overtime," she said. "Why the necessity? If it's necessary to work a million hours of overtime [each week], you need [more] people"..\..
   About 50 [union members] attended [the] meeting on [Australia's] Gold Coast as part of yesterday's national day of action by staff from three of [Australia's] four major banks....
   [Thanks to Australian Broadcasting and the FSU for filling us in a bit on the bankground of the present stir about runaway overtime in the banking industry down under, like where that talk about a "million hours of overtime" came from. We have one or two somewhat cryptic stories mentioning it below. Australia still seems to be a bit cut off from the rest of the world despite the wannabe "global" economy so chatted up by our captains of industry, and reporters "down under" tend to forget the rest of us languishing "in the outer darkness" around the world need to have first references of acronyms spelled out and, for instance, all four of the major Aussie banks named, preferably in order of size. And where the heck is their Gold Coast again? With all due respect, we're even less informed about Australia in, for example, this overtouted American "information hub," than we are about Canada right next door. (And God knows that's pretty uninformed!)]

• Three banks strike over ongoing dispute, Australian Broadcasting 13 Dec 2001 7:56pm AEDT via AOLNews.
  Industrial action wll affect three of Australia's biggest banks over the next two days. Banking staff at Westpac and the National Australia Bank are striking today for 24 hours, while workers at ANZ will follow suit tomorrow.
  The action by members of the Finance Sector Union has been timed to coincide with the banks' annual general meetings.... The Union's Geoff Derrick says the strike is not just about pay. "...The key issue for us has been around workloads. We've got a million hours of overtime being worked a week in this industry [and] most of it is unpaid," Mr. Derrick said.
  Westpac's David Lording says today's action is unjustified. "We have an 8% pay increase over two years for all eligible staff on the table, it's a very generous pay offer....
  [Often it's management that just doesn't get that it ain't the money, it's the time.]
  "We would also like to introduce a number of other initiatives that will assist our staff balance in particular their work and family life...," Mr Lording said....
  [However, nothing "in particular" is mentioned. Here's another salvo later in the day -]
  Bank disruption expected over workers' strike, Australian Broadcasting 13 Dec 2001 1:14pm AEDT via AOLNews.
  ...National Australia, ANZ and Westpac bank staff are taking part in a national day of action to try to secure what they say are more adequate staffing levels, fairer workloads and better pay. Bank branches will either be closed for a full or half day while others offer significantly reduced levels of service.
  The Finance Sector Union's Michael Clifford says 55,000 banking jobs have been lost during the past decade [while] staff are working...overtime each week. "Whenever you're standing in one of those bank queues, that's as a direct result of the understaffing," he said.
  "[And] when you're tired of seeing branch closure after branch closure, well that has a direct impact on our members because that's their jobs that are disappearing."...
  [And another shot even later -]
  Banks can afford to meet worker demands: union, Australian Broadcasting 13 Dec 2001 2:46pm AEDT via AOLNews.
  ...Bank services across southern Queensland [State] will be severely disrupted today..\.. The Finance Sector Union [FSU] secretary Michael Clifford says staff are calling for more adequate staffing levels, fairer workloads and better pay. "In the four major banks [what's the 4th??], they've seen 55,000 jobs disappear in the last decade [and now] a million hours of overtime is worked every single week," he said..\.. The FSU says Australia's major banks have no excuse for not meeting their employees' demands.... "These are issues that the banks can afford to address. The National Australia Bank, for example, made a $2.2B project [= "profit"??] this year. Between these three banks they make about $6.5B this year. [The staff] are tired of the arrogance of the banks."

1. GM's Lutz: still pushing for higher market share, by Michael Ellis, Reuters 17:35 12-12-01 via AOLNews.
   ...with sales incentives next year.... GM is also working on cutting costs for what is widely expected to be a slower sales year by
   • working with its suppliers
   • [i.e., beating them down pricewise]
   • eliminating overtime at it manufacturing plants
     [Cutting hours, now that it's cut jobs to the bone.]
   • and reducing its warranty and repair costs....
   [ Here's the AP version -]
   GM product changes afoot, by Ed Garsten, AP-NY-12-12-01 1901 EST via AOLNews.
   DETROIT - There is "turmoil and change afoot" in General Motor Corp.'s product development process, Robert Lutz, chairman GM North America said Wednesday.... On the job barely two months, on Oct. 13, Lutz was promoted to chairman, GM North America...
   [Easy to see why - he quotes Sherlock Holmes! Now if he can branch out to Gilbert&Sullivan and Flanders&Swan, he'll be chairman worldwide.]
   ...and manufacturing chief Gary Cowger was appointed president....
   Both Cowger and Lutz said a major effort is underway to find ways to cut costs, b[y] cutting waste within the company. "It's in overtime, it's in warranty, it's in repair, it's in campaigns, it's in engineering," Cowger said....
   [At least he's not still saying it's in headcount.]

2. Gov't calls for easing of standards on death from overwork, Kyodo via AP-NY-12-12-01 via AOLNews.
   TOKYO...- The [Japanese] government Wed. issued an advisory to labor affairs bureaus at 47 prefectural government offices asking that they drastically ease standards for acknowledging death from overwork [in Japanese, "karoshi"], government officials said. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare told the bureaus to consider lengthening the period of time during which labor inspectors look at a case of possible death from overwork to six months from the current one week, the officials said. It is the first time for the government to recommend revising the standards since Feb. 1995.
   The number of cases in which death from excessive work is acknowledged is expected to rise significantly under the advisory's guidelines. The government acknowledges abaout 40 death-from-overwork cases a year under the current system, which has been criticized as being too strict by bereaved family members and their lawyers.
   [Especially since, back in the early 90s, they were estimating 10,000 cases of karoshi every year!]
   The Ministry also asked that the bureaus release statistics on the relationship between deaths from overwork and the hours worked.
   The bureaus take into account six working conditions such as irregular working hours when judging cases on death from overwork. As a rough standard for gauging excessive overwork over a long period, the advisory says a death caused by overwork may happen if a person works more than 100 overtime hours a month or 80 [overtime] hours a month for a 2- to 6-month period.
   Meanwhile, the Ministry called for the inclusion of working conditions such as irregular working hours, including many business trips, and work involving a lot of stress, as factors contributing to death cause by overwork.
   The Ministry had been mulling changes to the current system o[f] acknowledging death from overwork after the Supreme Court and other courts issued a series of rulings in favor of applications that had been rejected by labor standards inspection offices.
   [The blindingly obvious missing factoid here is, what's in it for bereaved family members? Why do they want their loved one to be classified as a karoshi?]

• [Last week, the gendarmes. This week on Monday, the teachers. Tuesday -]
  French customs, prison officers join protests, Reuters 13:00 12-11-01 via AOLNews.
  PARIS...- French prison officers blockaded jails and customs officers worked to rule on Tuesday, bolstering nationwide protests by public service workers demanding better pay and work deals before next year's elections.
  [Ya gotta hand it to the French!]
  Prison officers seeking improved working hours blocked the entrances to jails in the Pyrenees region of southwest France, emboldened by recent pay deals struck by the government with the civlian police and paramilitary gendarmes.... Customs officers worked strictly to rule to "draw awareness to the onerousness of their task" and to demand better pay and more resources....
  Officials responsible for supervising refugees also went on strike for a second day in protest over working hours.
  On Monday many schoolchildren had the day off as teachers left their classrooms to march in the streets to air grievances over pay levels, overwork and classroom violence.
  Family doctors and trainee medical interns have also gone on strike....
  [And that involves overwork, if our medical interns are any indication. See 11/21 #1. Overwork in this context means shorter hours (to new 35-hour workweek) but the same or greater workload, and possibly a lot of overtime, paid or un-. But at any rate, not the outcome intended by the workweek reduction, namely, more hiring.]

• French teachers down chalk over violence, workload, Reuters 06:58 12-10-01 via AOLNews.
  PARIS...- Thousands of French teachers took to the streets on Monday to air grievances ranging from overwork to classroom violence, the latest in a raft of protest to beset Prime Minister Lionel Jospin five months before elections.
  [Ya gotta hand it to the French. They are the spunkiest! Last week the gendarmes - and they got what they wanted. This week the teachers say, "Hey, the gendarmes got what they wanted last week. Let's go!" And as for being a problem to beset Jospin - au contraire, this is exactly the right kind of problem to make France recession-proof. Every victory ordinary people win centrifuges the national income dba spending power out to the people who actually spend it, and the more of that in France (or any other economy) the less recessions elsewhere are going to bother them.]
  The Education Ministry said just under a quarter of teachers had joined the one-day strike by late morning. Teaching unions said the figure was much higher, with as many as one in two teachers deserting classrooms in primary schools.... One of the major demands is to reduce the amount of time a teacher must spend in the classroom to allow for better preparation of lessons and other duties....
  At the weekend, [Jospin's] government pledged $220m worth of pay rises and equipment expenditure to the country's gendarmes after an unprecedented wave of street protests by the 200-year-old paramilitary corps.

1. Labor dispute at Canada's CBC disrupts programs, Reuters/Variety 21:30 12-07-01 via AOLNews.
   TORONTO - Programming at the [Canadian Broadcasting Corp.] CBC, Canada's national public TV and radio networks, was disrupted Friday, with 1,600 technicians off the job.... The labor dispute - over wages, overtime and working conditions - affectly mainly the CBC's English-speaking TV networks.... The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union said its members were escorted off the job early Friday morning by CBC's "newly hired army of security guards." "We are disgusted by CBC's aggression and intimidation," said union VP Peter Murdoch. "It is truly a sad day when Canada's own public broadcaster stoops to these lows." In some places, locks were changed so that workers could not enter CBC premises..\.. The technicians' union, which set up picket lines in several Canadian cities, said its members had been locked out in retaliation for groups of workers leaving the job Thursday for "peaceful, civil study sessions."...
   [Well, when employees are insubordinate and employers lose the basic element of the employment situation for which they hand over money, namely, control, all bets are off and any degree of unpredictability may be imagined. Did employees studiously make only the "minimum necessary departure from status quo" at each point? If not, they can hardly blame the employer for not doing so.]
   Plans for a major [program] on the federal budget, to be unveiled on Monday, are being replaced by bare-bones coverage with a limited staff.... The networkd also said its coverage of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics would not be affected if the strike lasted into February.... A CBC official said, "We have already said we will be staffing Salt Lake City with freelance technical workers."...
   ["Already"? How long before? Before the dispute? Is this one of the points under dispute?]
   The CBC, bankrolled by the government to promote Canadian culture, has been hit hard over the past decade by stretched budgets and job cuts as Ottawa reduced its funding. Murdoch said earlier that rollbacks in overtime, work hours and temporary-workers provisions proposed by the CBC would cost his members C$6m ($3.8m) over 2 years. "Our members are not prepared to bear the burden of under-funding and poor management practices at the CBC," he said. The same technical workers were on strike for six weeks two years ago.
   [Well, they'll have to bear them until they get themselves better managers and more funding, or until they force management away from its apparent attempts at timesizing into brutal downsizing and the union loses members to unemployment, as has been happening throughout Canada and the U.S. for the last 30-40 years. This union looks like it belongs to that half of the labor movement that just doesn't "get" the timesizing imperative that worksaving technology lays upon every economy in the world. Any union that is pressing for more overtime instead of shorter hours is slitting its own throat and that of the whole labor movement, and in fact, that of all employees globally and every economy in the world. The choice is between well-paid shorter hours via sharing the vanishing human work, or unpaid unemployment. Pick one.]
   The CBC says it must be frugal as it tries to direct resources to programming. It has imposed a one-time payment of C$500, an immediate 1.5% pay increase and a 2% pay rise in July.
   [They have jobs and they're getting a bonus and two raises in a global recession? What is their problem? Don't read newspapers? Futhermore -]
   CBC spokesman Chuck Thompson said those conditions had been "considerably sweetened" in recent bargaining.

2. French police demand higher pay, by Jean-Marie Godard, AP-NY-12-07-01 1638EST via AOLNews.
   [More on yesterday's gendarme story.]
   France's keepers of the peace disrupted it Friday as more than 10,000 police officers held nationwide protests demanding...higher wages, shorter working hours and the hiring of 10,000 more staff nationwide. They say they have been working too much overtime and are ill-equipped to handle rising crime. Gendarmes earn $17,000-$40,000 a year and say their salaries should be equal to those of police, who tend to earn slightly more. On Nov. 30, the defense minister said the government would pay an extra $1,100 next year to gendarmes, soldiers in the Republican Guard and military hospital workers who cannot take all their paid holiday because of staffing shortages....
   [In France, it's employers who don't get it, including many public-sector employers. The whole point of the administration's shorter workweek is to reduce France's 9% unemployment, but these num-nums are resisting hiring worse than the private sector.]

1. Gendarmes gather in Cintegabelle, southwestern France, Thursday, AP-12-06-01 via AOLNews.
   Some 2,000 gendarmes gathered in Cintegabelle on Thursday for a church service to honor the French gendarmes injured or killed while on duty. Gendarmes in cities across France have been protesting since Monday, demanding more pay, shorter working hours and more staff. [photo caption]

2. Deutsche Boerse seen cutting trading hours - report, Reuters 15:32 12-06-01 via AOLNews.
   FRANKFURT...- German stock exchange operator Deutsche Boerse may reintroduce shorter trading hours, German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported, citing financial sources. In an articile released ahead of publication on Friday, the newspaper said Deutsche Boerse had signalled it might be willing to cut its trading hours to 1730 CET (1630 GMT) from 2000 CET currently....
   The bourse extended its trading hours last year and has since faced strong criticism from banks, which complained the resulting rise in personnel costs had not been compensated by additional trade.
   The newspaper also said Deutsche Boerse is considering making trading hours in some segments more flexible according to liquidity levels and offering trading services to private investors only after 1730 CET.

1. French services PMI contracts for second month, Reuters 03:51 12-05-01 via AOLNews.
   PARIS...- France's services sector contracted for the second month in a row in November, reflecting heightened uncertainty about the global economic outlook that led to a fall in new business and job cuts, data showed Wednesday. The CDAF/Reuters Purchasing Manufacturers' Index, an overall gauge of the sector's performance, dropped to 48.4 in November from 48.7 in October, as more of the 350 panelists expressed concerns about the economic outlook....
   [A 0.3 drop? - probably the lowest in Europe and the world, thanks to France's domestic markets awakened by work sharing via the 35-hour workweek.]
   A reading above 50 for the PMI index...signals the sector is expanding,...below [50] points to contraction..\.. Many respondents, particularly in the hospitality and transport industries, said their businesses continued to be hampered by 9/11....
   The incoming new business index was also below 50 points for the second consecutive month with almost a quarter of managers blaming the current economic environment for the continued weakness. The index was 48.1 points after 47.5 last month.
   [So it actually recovered 0.6 points.]
   ...November saw the first contraction in service sector jobs since the survey began in May 1998, with the employmnet index recording 49.5 after 52.0 in October.
   [Pretty damn good compared to everyone else's service sectors, most which turned south last spring!]
   Service sector firms noted a rise in average costs during the month as a result of adapting to the 35-hour working week and exceptional costs associated with the preparation for the introduction of the euro from January 1....
   [But workweek adjustment costs turn around and go right into strengthening domestic markets.]

2. Singapore firms face mounting pressure to cut jobs, by Jacqueline Wong, Reuters Dec.5 via AOLNews.
   Singapore-based companies are expected to shed more jobs by the end of the year to cope with lower profits, a trend some analysts say could push the unemployment rate beyond the peaks of the Asian financial crisis. With the island coping with its worst recession in more than 30 years, prompted by a slowdown in the United States, Japan and Europe, analysts say unemployment could top the 4.4% seen in 1998 at the height of the last crisis....
   Companies in general have halted hiring, trimmed bonuses, frozen wages and shortened work weeks in the face of government and union pleas for employers to hold off from job cuts as long as possible....

1. AFL-CIO asked to increase membership, by Leigh Strope, AP-NY-12-04-01 0513EST via AOLNews.
   LAS VEGAS - The AFL-CIO's 66 member unions are being asked to increase their membership by 10% and to devote at least 30% of their budgets to organizing to help boost labor's numbers....
   [Then they should quit being useless and lobby to decrease the workweek by 10%, because that will give them nearly 10% more jobs, over 10% less unemployment and underemployment, and depending on how many more women, immigrants, and labor-'relieving' robots we inject into this economy, and how many more jobs we ship overseas, up to 10% better wages and benefits.]
   The resolutions that will be voted on this week by nearly 1,000 delegates at the AFL-CIO's biennial convention here come as union membership has declined or stagnated while the overall workforce grows [and wages decline - ed.]....
   The AFL-CIO claims a slight membership increase of about 100,000 this year to 13.2m. That's about the same number [as] when [the] two labor federations merged in 1955 to form the AFL-CIO. Since [then], the U.S. work force has almost doubled and union membership nationally declined from a historic 35% to 13.5% last year....
   [Not all of the labor movement is as dense and off-issue as the AFL-CIO -]
   To avoid layoffs, AirTran Airways mechanics and other workers represented by the Teamsters agreed to a shorter work week and other reduced compensation [see 11/23 #3, 11/02 #1 and 9/19]....
   [Short-term pain for short-term gain for some who would otherwise lose their jobs, and long-term gain for all who, no longer a surplus commodity, will experience wage boosts from blind market forces rewarding their scarcity as in wartime.]

2. Brazil Congress passes labor bill, govt celebrates, by Axel Bugge, Reuters 18:00 12-04-01 via AOLNews.
   BRASILIA...- Brazil's lower house of Congress approved on Tuesday a deeply divisive bill making it easier for companies to hire and fire workers, in an important victory for the government's free-market reform agenda.... The law will make labor laws more flexible by allowing employers to negotiate contracts directly with unions, allowing them to agree to shorten the work week, break-up holidays and parcel out bonuses, overriding existing laws..\..
   [So we must infer that previous laws banned the shortening of the workweek, and thereby prevented labor from gaining any more leverage by offsetting labor surplus?]
   Amid loud heckling from the gallery and protests by unions opposed to the changes in pro-worker labor legislation in existence since the 1940s, the house passed the bill by 264 for and 213 against with two abstentions, lawmakers said....
   [The sine qua non of labor power is control over the workweek, but it's possible that these unions don't understand that and are of a mind to constantly grasp for overtime for more immediate cash, unaware of the devastating longer-term effect of plentiful overtime on wages.]
   Unions...fear...the employees' benefits will be undercut and that job security will be reduced because it will be easier to fire workers.
   [Again, if this made individual firing for just cause easier, it's all to the good, but if it made mass layoffs easier, it will flush the Brazilian economy right down the toilet.]
   Pres. Fernando Henrique Cardoso's government, which has introduced sweeping free-market reforms such as privatizing state monopolies, taming run-away inflation and controlling state spending, says the bill would cut firms' costs allowing them to hire more workers....
   [Who knows, the previous legal situation may have been the kind of double-edged sword that labor fought for and won in Europe, but which was so full of "protections" that it made firms very reluctant to hire, so labor lost some ground. So this new legislative environment in Brazil is probably also a double-edged sword either way you slice it, but if the current slice is a "lemon," labor should be "making lemonade" out of it by seizing the opportunity to push down the workweek, mopping up their surplus, and getting a better balance of power with management.]

• Cost-wary firms pare, eliminate cash bonus - Many offer time off and other incentives, by Diane Lewis, Boston Globe, G1.
  Like many firms enjoying the heady rush of a go-go economy, CGM, an advertising firm in downtown Boston [Mass.], didn't skimp on cash bonuses last year: The typical year-end payout to its employees ranged from 5 to 15% of their annual salaries.
  This year, Santa won't be as generous. Instead of cash, employees will receive paid time off, from Dec. 24 to Jan. 2. "We are doing this in lieu of bonus payments," said Ken Dec, president and CEO. "We have people who are from different parts of the country and this will give them an opportunity to spend time with their families, which has become even more of a priority given 9/11."...
  In a recent e-mail, Terra Lycos, the Waltham MA Internet firm, asked its 800-member staff to take five days off during the Christmas week to help reduce costs. Spokeswoman Michele Perry said more than 90% of the workers will use paid time they have accrued. The firm has also added another week to the standard two-week vacation, she said..\..
  CGM [and Terra Lycos are] the rule rather than the exception: The nation's economic blues will mean more cost-cutting among employers and fewer cash bonuses for workers, new surveys show. US companies in battered industries are reducing fiscal year-end bonuses tied to performance and other forms of profit-sharing that fall under the heading "variable pay." They're also imposing paid holidays and unpaid furloughs, and substituting less costly gifts for cash....
  [Timesizing, not downsizing. We either do it the smart way under our control, or it happens anyway beyond our control. We either share the vanishing work to spread&activate the income and steady the spending&markets or we get huge hiccoughs in spending&markets called recessions. And of course, we do anything but downsize, until immediately prior to corporate liquidation. Downsizing induces downturns. Stockholders who don't like downturns should NEVER buy the stock of downsizing companies. They should NEVER reward downsizing CEOs. And here's another vital piece of the solution - for those who seriously want a solution -]
  While some firms...appear to be weathering the downturn and will likely continue cash incentives..., companies in the hardest hit sectors are asking everyone - from assembly line workers to chief executives - to share the pain.
  [A major principle of one of our most successful rustbelt companies (Lincoln Electric) is, "Everyone sacrifices together, starting at the top."]
  Traditionally, top executives were shielded from such cost-cutting.
  [If the decision makers feel no pain, there's no feedback system. Your cybernetics are shot. No feedback, no depth perception, no deep-enough course corrections, no survivability. In a word, no feedback system, no system.]
  Now, employers are also taking a closer look at perks and bonuses awarded the corporate elite.... At Novell, the Utah e-business solutions and Net services software firm, bonuses will be reduced for almost all staff, including Jack Messman, the chairman and CEO. Messman has informed the company's board that he will not take a bonus this year, a spokesman said.
  [This should not be the CEO's call. That's just unreliable charity. This should be automatic in the corporate design and charter.]
  ...ZweigWhite Inc. in Natick MA...a nationwide management consulting, training, and publishing firm that serves the architectural engineering and environmental industry, decided to reduce profit-sharing to its owners rather than cut quarterly profit-sharing allocations to employees. \So\ the company's 24 owners will receive 50% of the firm's profit-sharing allotment this season rather than the 60% they normally receive....
  [Sounds like a more reasonable percentage regardless.]
  Meanwhile, Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn, Mich., says 6,000 managers and top execs will go without the traditional annual year-end bonus this year....

1. Energy cost fall cuts euro-zone producer prices, by Paul Carrel, Reuters 11:45 11-30-01 via AOLNews.
   PARIS...- A fall in the cost of oil led to a sharp fall in producer prices in key euro-zone economies in October, with the cost of goods leaving factory gates holding up once the volatile energy factor was stripped out....
   PATCHY DEMAND
   The ability of retailers and other companies to eke out larger profit margins from the cheaper production cost of goods is dependent on their ability to maintain their retail prices - and that looks like a difficult task in the current environment....
   [So this French reporter has found a reason to complain about lower oil costs?! French consumers are better -]
   In France, consumer confidence has held up despite the slump in the global economy and helped fuel a 0.5% rise in gross domestic product (GDP) - the broadest measure of total economic activity - in the third quarter from the second. "There is clearly an opportunity for businesses to rebuild [profit] margins on the back of these trends in producer prices," said Deutsche Bank economist David Naude. But he cautioned that French firms, retailers included, may see this potential offset by increased labour costs as they continued to respond to the introduction of a nationwide law reducing the working week to 35 hours.
   {But then, what does he think is responsible for the resilience of French consumer confidence despite the slump, and where does he think the additional consumer spending power is coming from - if not from increased wages (employees' viewpoint) = labor costs (employers' viewpoint)?!]
   "I don't think we're completely done in France with the increase coming from labour costs due to the 35 hour working week," Naude said....
   [Keep trying, pal - it just won't stick. The work and income spreading that has resulted so far from the 35 hour workweek has been the best thing France has seen since the liberation of Paris in 1945.]

2. Lufthansa to re-think Airbus order, by David McHugh, AP-NY-11-30-01 1251EST via AOLNews.
   FRANKFURT...- German airline Lufthansa plans to re-evaluate its decision to postpone buying up to 15 A380 jumbo jets from Airbus and four Boeing 747s, made as passenger numbers dropped after 9/11, a company spokeswoman said Friday. ...She stressed that "it's completely open" what decision the board will make....
   Lufthansa says its passenger traffic has dropped 20% since 9/11. The company has idled 43 aircraft and dropped some of its less-traveled routes to cut costs. On Thursday, it proposed trimming working hours for 12,000 flight attendants for the next six months as part of ongoing negotiations with labor unions aimed at avoiding job losses.
   [And the attendant losses in active spending power, domestic demand, and recession resilience.]

3. Europe toughens up on job cuts - Looking for 'smarter ways' to handle the problem of hiring and firing, by Edmund Andrews, NYT, C1.
   [This article, though it could, on the facts, does not live up to the promise of its headline, and actually lists a lot of jobcuts which we are loathe to confirm in our count. The burden of its headline optimism seems to lie in this one paragraph -]
   ...According to data compiled by the European Commission, 9 of 10 jobs created in Europe from 1990 to 1998 have been either temporary or part time....
   [So let's just leave it at the headline and muse on the timesizing mentioned -]
   Siemens and a few other companies have offered to pay some white-collar professionals to take sabbaticals of six months to a year....