Timesizing® Associates - Homepage

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Timesizing News, March 11-20, 2002
[Commentary] ©2002 Phil Hyde, Timesizing.com, Box 622, Porter Sq, Cambridge MA 02140 USA 617-623-8080

3/20/2002  primitive Timesizing in the news -

1. [yet another reminder that part of unionized labor is its own worst enemy -]
   Mexican Volkswagen workers reject plan, AP-NY-03-19-02 1807EST via AOLNews.
   MEXICO CITY - Workers at Mexico's only Volkswagen factory voted Tuesday to reject a company proposal that would cut [hours and] wages to save jobs.
   [And another indication that English-language reporters still don't get it either. This reporter left out the crucial element to be cut, worktime - the wage cut here is secondary and derivative. So when does this unusually clueless AP reporter finally get around to VW's whole point with this proposal? Fourth paragraph, which we'll cut to the chase and jump to -]
   ...Union representative Miguel Angel Galan...said the company had proposed reducing the average workweek by around 12%, to 37 hours from 42.5 hours, with wages cut proportionally. He said that would be equivalent to approximately 1,300 jobs that would otherwise be eliminated over the next two years.\..
   [1,300 saved jobs - rejected by vote of the employees. Yet this is the essence of worksharing or timesizing, - cutting hours (and pay if necessary) a little for all to avoid completely cutting the jobs of, first, a few, with resulting market shrinkage, and anxious jobseekers willing to work for less, and then subsequent jobcuts and market shrinkage for a few more, and a few more, until a vicious downward spiral is established. Such a spiral is active all over the world today but has become so taken for granted and disguised with incarceration and militarization to keep people asleep to the worksharing imperative. Here is a case where you can't blame management. VW apparently didn't think much of GM's downsizing approach (74,000 laid off and its HQ-town of Flint, MI gutted in 1991) and thereupon VW obtained firsthand experience with the success of the alternative approach in 1994 - VW employees in Germany were smart enough to vote to share the vanishing work in 1994 and save 30,000 jobs and their HQ town of Wolfsburg. The Mexican vote did not go this way.]
   "More than disappointed, I'm concerned," Galan said in a telephone interview. "We would like to save these jobs."... Volkswagen already had cut 1,200 jobs in Mexico over the past year, Galan said. Workers also [were hit by] 12 technical shutdowns last year as sales continued to decline..\..
   [So what proportion of employees were smart and what proportion suicidal?]
   Approximately 6,325 of the approximately 9,400 unionized workers at the plant in the central Mexican city of Puebla voted against the plan, said...Galan. The plant is the only one in the world producing the New Beetle....
   [So 6325/9400= 67% = two thirds stupid, short-sighted and suicidal, and only 33%=one third smart. There is an article on modern slavery in April/2002's Scientific American that throws some light on this. "The Social Psychology of Modern Slavery" by Kevin Bales is introduced (p.5) with the blurb, "Slavery in various guises survives around the world, contrary to conventional wisdom" essentially because many slaves cooperate passively with enslaving factors, in part, because they don't know any better, or different. Some slaves love their chains, and so "Psychologically preparing slaves for freedom may be essential to breaking the cycle." It seems we have a much bigger, in fact, pervasive problem with humans who don't see beyond their noses and whose anxious clinging to what they have in terms of working hours effectively guarantees that they will be paid less and less. Labor has yet to learn that if you can pick only one of its two traditional goals of (1) higher pay and (2) shorter hours, you pick the first and you wind up with neither, you pick the second and you wind up with both. Why? Because shorter hours avoids labor surplus and even generates some labor scarcity, both of which harness market forces on the side of boosting wages without government involvement. And basically, you only ever get One Big Pick so you better make it the right one. American labor let themselves get placated (by the New Deal) into picking the wrong one in the 1930s and now they're toast.]
   Volkswagen is Mexico's No. 3 carmaker, with domestic sales of 165,323 units in 2001, down from 169,111 units in 2000. Domestic sales fell 2% in January over the year-earlier month and by 9.8% in February. Exports have also slipped sharply. The factor[y] exported 229,562 units in 2001 compared with 338,825 in 2000 and 338,794 units in 1999. Exports appear to have recovered recently, jumping to 107,487 units in February from 29,051 units in the same month last year.

2. [plus 4 cases of cutting overtime -]
   Crime drop continues in N.Y.C., AP-NY-03-19-02 0129EST via AOLNews.
   The latest NYPD statistics show 85 murders were reported through March 17 - down 39.7% from the same period last year. In Manhattan, only 11 murders were recorded, compared with 28 last year. Overall violente crime - murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and auto theft - was down by 7.9%. The numbers were down 18% compared with 2000, and 65.4% compared to 1993.
   The drop occurred even as police have cut overtime and redeployed officers to meet anti-terrorism demands....

3. IMPAC Medical Systems, Inc. announces return on investment in medical oncology centers of excellence, PRNewswire 03/19/2002 03:29 EST via AOLNews.
   MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif...- IMPAC Medical Systems Inc. today announced positive ROI [return on investment] results from a study recently completed by medical oncology centers using IMPAC's Multi-ACCESS(TM) management system.... IMPAC's ROI study revealed that one oncology business experienced a 15% increase in revenue by using IMPAC to minimize or eliminate lost revenue due to previously lost charges.... In addition to an increase in revenue, one oncology center found an increase of 12% in physicians' patient time and an increase of 9% in nurses' patient time. At another center, the clinical staff overtime hours decreased by 27%....

4. Hotels and lodging operators reach Prop. 65 settlement; Agreement deal will reduce cost of business, prop up California's tourism industry, PRNewswire BW0314 Mar 19 2002 1201 Eastern via AOLNews.
   SACRAMENTO, Calif...- Under the guidance of the California Hotel & Lodging Assoc. [CHLA], California's hotel and lodging operators have reached a settlement agreement that will provide a way to limit their liability regarding claims filed under Proposition 65 [which] requires anyone exposed to carcinogens or reproductive toxins to be warned - a concept universally accepted by the operators of California's lodging establishments..\.. If approved by a judge, the settlement, which includes new warning/compliance guidelines, would limit a lodging operator's liability from "bounty hunters" - private attorneys who sue for millions of dollars in fines on behalf of the general public when it is alleged that a lodging operator violates Prop. 65. ...Said Jim Abrams, exec. VP of the CHLA, "...This adds significantly to the cost of running a hotel or an inn, and it therefore takes a tremendous toll on the state's economy."
   In fact, Calif.'s lodging operators are already at a significant disadvantage when competing with other states for conventions and meetings. Research conducted by the CHLA demonstrates that the overall cost of holdign a typical convention in Calif. is often 30-50% higher than...in other states.... These higher costs result from such factors as Calif.'s higher land costs and workers' compensation premiums, Calif.'s daily overtime requirement [i.e., limit?] which does not exist in...most other states, and Calif.'s higher minimum wage, among others....
   [What to make of this rather strange turn of phrase? Is the point that Calif. has a daily overtime limit while most states have a more flexible weekly one, or that Calif.'s OT limit averages to a lower daily level than most states, or some combination?]

5. [Minn. House sets up nurse overtime ban for Ventura to sign. This story sets up the story we carry on 3/26 about Jesse Ventura actually signing the OT ban (but, 3/22, Bush wants to boost workfare from 30 to 40 hrs/wk and, 3/15, double-edged minimum-wage/living-wage approach goes on and on) -]
   Minnesota Nurses Association Members hail legislative ban on mandatory overtime, PRNewswire 03/19/2002 23:22 EST via AOLNews.
   ST. PAUL, Minn...- Nurses in the state of Minnesota fought for and won a major gain for patient safety today as the House of Representatives overwhelmingly supported the Minnesota Nurses Association's (MNA) initiative to eliminate the use of mandatory overtime when a nurse knows she/he is unsafe to perform duties.
   The bill was passed by the House [last] night, following the Senate passage of the legislation last Wednesday by a unanimous vote.  The bill now goes to Governor Ventura's desk, where it is expected to be signed into law....
   "We fought for this bill passionately," said MNA Board Member, Patti Koenig, RN who testified in the Senate. "We fought for our colleagues in many hospitals in greater Minnesota who have worked 8-hour shifts, were told to work another 8 hours, went home and rested, and then had to turn around and return to the bedside.  "These nurses knew they were exhausted and lived in fear of committing errors, and yet workplace regulations overruled the good judgment of the nurse.  This bill acknowledges the trustworthiness of nurses, and we applaud our courageous legislators for this important work."
   The Mandatory Overtime Prevention Act enjoyed bi-partisan support from the beginning of the legislative year.  It was authored in the Senate by Sen. Ellen Anderson, DFL-St. Paul and in the House by Republican Larry Howes.  A number of organizations also endorsed the action.  SEIU Local 113, the Steelworkers and the AFL-CIO all provided various means of welcome support.
   With more than 15,500 members, MNA is the leading organization for Registered Nurses in the Midwest and is among the oldest and largest representatives of RNs for collective bargaining in the nation.  Established in 1905, MNA is a multi-purpose organization that fosters high standards for nursing education and practice, and works to advance the profession through legislative activity.  MNA is affiliated with the AFL-CIO and is a constituent member of the American Nurses Association and its labor arm, the United American Nurses.
   [This progressive story, though based on special pleading that should be unnecessary, contrasts markedly with two regressive stories -]
   (3/22)  Welfare rolls rising as Congress debates reform, by Joanne Kenen, Reuters 15:46 03-21-02 via AOLNews.
   Hit by recession, welfare rolls are rising in many states just as Congress starts work on modifying the 1996 welfare reform that has been widely hailed as a success in slashing the number of people on welfare and getting them to work.
   [And widely condemned as a failure for skyrocketing the number of people on the streets and in the prisons (who are routinely ignored in the orgy of welfare "reform" self-congratulation) because the well-paying entry-level 40-hr/wk jobs and support support services (transportation, childcare) just aren't there.]
   The increase in caseloads is not enormous...
   [Oh no? How big an increase do you need before calling it "enormous"?]
   ...but it does reverse the downward trend and may shape policy in Congress, lawmakers and academic experts said in interviews Thursday....
   The 1996 welfare reforms expire this year, and Congress must renew the program by October. ...Bush wants to freeze spending at current levels while requiring states to put more welfare recipients to work and have them increase their work week from 30 hours to 40.
   [Oh that should provide more work for prison builders and guards in 15-20 years!]
   Democrats say that won't succeed without more money, especially for child care.... Sen. John Breaux, a moderate Democrat from Louisiana who chairs a key subcommittee on welfare, said..."Forty hours is too much"..\..
   [No kidding.]
   In a recent study, Congress's GAO surveyed 23 states and found 17 has caseload increases ranging from 1 to 11% in the last 6 months of 2001. Five states reported decreases. One had no change....
   [They must have picked these states carefully for them to come this good.]
   The independent Center for Law and Social Policy found that 40 out of 50 states had caseload increases between Sept. and Dec. 2001, a period that encompassed the 9/11 shock to the economy. For the whole year, 34 states had increases, compared with nine states a year earlier....
   [And few people hit their 5-year lifetime welfare cap last year. Many more will hit it this year. Then we have this report on two-edged "progress" -]
   (3/15)  Study finds living wage laws reduce poverty [but increase unemployment - ed.], Reuters 19:09 03-14-02 via AOLNews.
   SAN FRANCISCO - Living wage laws may push some workers out of jobs but the benefits of boosting the poor out of poverty may outweigh the employment losses, according to a new study released Thursday.
   [Nothing, but nothing, outweighs employment losses, because employment losses increase the downward market pressure on wages, and create even more "leaks in the dike" of micromanaging government regulation to maintain or increase wages. The whole minimum-wage, living-wage approach is wrong-headed. When labor let FDR bribe them out of a maximum workweek with a minimum wage in 1933, they took the wrong fork in the road. You can't fix a problem of people wanting more than their share (Chesterton's flaw) at the bottom. It must be fixed at the top with upper limits, not lower limits, and the upper limit in this case is a watertight workweek maximum and downward adjustment thereof until the job market vacuums up forced retirement, unemployment, welfare, disability, homelessness, prisons, and work-related suicides before they happen. In other words, until the private sector cleans up its own mess.]
   The national study conducted by the San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute found that if a city passes a living wage that is 50% higher than the state's minimum wage, it will raise the average pay of low-income workers by 3.5%. The survey...estimates a 50% hike in the living wage would reduce the poverty rate by 1.4%.... But...a 50% increase in the living wage would also reduce employment among lower-paid workers by 7%..\..
   [Boy, we had to dredge that factoid out of the middle of the article - this reporter sure wants to coddle the advocates of this flawed approach!]
   ...The study's author - a critic of minimum wages - said this was the first real research into the effects of living wages on the more than 60 U.S. cities and counties that have adopted the policy. "These [living wage laws] have been floating around now and growing in popularity for 6-7 years but there was really no evidence of their effect," said David Neumark, an economics professor at Michigan State University.... He also explained the difference between minimum wages, which are much lower and universally employed, and living wages which apply to a much more narrow work force - usually city workers or private firms with government contracts.
   [In short, living wages are just a higher version of minimum wages, and if dogooders think that living wages are necessary, it means that minimum wages are failing. And if a lower, easier to legislate version is failing, why on earth would you want to waste reform energy on a harder version? Reformers need to look at an alternative approach - shorter maximum workweeks, not higher minimum wages. We should by now have learned from 2002-1776= 226 years of American economic history that of the two traditional goals of labor, (1) higher pay and (2) shorter hours, the first gets you neither in the long run, but the second gets you both.]
   "Living wage laws will lead to some employment loss,
   [7% more joblessness among lower-paid workers is not just "some" employment loss!]
   but on balance, the steep wage increases make it less likely that families with a living wage workers will live in poverty," Neumark said.
   [This is not a "balance" - it's the same argument that the American union movement has been using for 69 years to justify its short-term gains for the shrinking number of its members who were still not laid off, while it lost power and shrank from its roughly 30% of the workforce in the 1930s, through a war-induced balloon of up to 40% in the 1950s, back down to its present 14% of the workforce. Dumb dumb dumb. There are so few "living wage workers," yet advocates are wasting sooo much energy on this tiny bandaid in front of them while causing leaks all over the place behind and beside them.]
   An example is San Francisco where the living wage of $10 an hour is some 50% more than the state's $6.75 an hour minimum wage. Over a "normal" [our quotes - ed.] 40-hour work week, the yearly gain of $6500 is enough to pull a family out of what the federal government considers the poverty level [which is??? - bad reporting to omit!] But this too could be a double-edged sword because once out of poverty the family would likely lose a number of public assistance benefits - a rough reality in a notoriously expensive city like San Francisco. "It should be noted that...this study...does not compare the effectiveness of living wages to other poverty-reduction policies, such as the earned income tax credit [and workweek reduction - ed.]," said David Lyon, president of the Public Policy Institute of California.

1. Factbox - French presidency pledges of Chirac and Jospin, Reuters 09:46 03-18-02 via AOLNews.
   ...Employment -
   Chirac says the policy imposed under Jospin of a 35-hour working week must be made more flexible, allowing those who want to work longer to do so.
   [Timesizing does this, but only for people who love their jobs and are not doing it for the money. How separate the sheep from the goats, or rather the job lovers from the golddiggers? Mandate reinvestment of overtime earnings. There are several ways to do this. We favor a tax of 100% of overtime earnings with a complete exemption for reinvestment in training and hiring in skill areas corresponding to the overtime. (We tend to call it "overtime" only on the corporate level, but "overwork" on the individual level because an individual be over the line working for several different companies taken together and not be working overtime for any one of them taken separately.) This makes the problem (of overtime) self-solving, always a good idea in system design. Why is overtime a problem? Because it relates directly to Chesterton's pan-utopian flaw where he says utopians always assume that our biggest problem has already been solved and that no one will want more than his share. The whole concept of overtime implies that someone is getting more than his share, and that's a problem.]
   He also promises youth jobs programmes
   [Jospin already has these in place]
   and the possibility for people to work beyond the age of 60.
   [There's no harm in that if you have fluctuating adjustment of the workweek in place ("timesizing") - fluctuating automatically against unemployment.]
   Jospin has pledged to cut unemployment by a further 900,000 during the next legislature, with specific emphasis on helping the young and old unemployed back to work.
   Public institutions -
   Chirac has pledged to increase the use of referendums....
   [Good one, just like Timesizing's Phase One.]
   Jospin...has proposed that parliamentarians hold only one political post at a time.
   [Good one. Enough of Poohbah-ism.]

2. The following are among the human interest stories that appeared on the Reuters world file -
   German prostitutes get contracts, profit-sharing, Reuters 11:44 03-18-02 via AOLNews.
   BERLIN - Prostitutes working in a Berlin brothel have been offered employment contracts with a 40-hour work week and a profit-sharing scheme, a German newspaper reported. Bild newspaper said Felicitas Weigmann, the owner of the posh Berlin brothel "Cafe Pssst!," drew up the first job contracts for her staff after the German parliament passed a law last year giving prostitutes new employment rights.
   [We had the impression that though many German companies may have shorter-than-40-hour workweeks, there was no nationwide ruling on it similar to the French 35-hour workweek. This confirms that impression and offers a big clue as to why the German economy is in much tougher shape than the French.]
   In exchange for a regular 40-hour week, prostitutes at Cafe Pssst! are entitled to a basic wage of $528 per month plus a "profit-sharing" payment of $35 per client. They can, however, choose to remain free agents without a contract....
   ["Regular" indeed!]
   Germany has an estimated 400,000 prostitutes, whose services are used 1.2 million times a day..\..
   [You don't like it? Then this is another reason for sharing the vanishing work that's unobjectionable to you.]
   Prostitution is legal in Germany and prostitutes' earnings were always liable to tax. But before the law was passed, sexual services were legally declared "immoral"..\..
   [Oh no-o-o!]
   The law passed by parliament last year gave prostitutes the right to claim Social Security, health insurance and a pension. It also allowed them to pursue through the courts customers who refuse to pay.
   [Chacun à son goût.]

3. Seven killed in tourist coach crash in France, Reuters 09:27 03-18-02 via AOLNews.
   METZ, France...- An Italian truck and a coach [bus] carrying Dutch tourists collided in eastern France on Monday, killing seven people and injuring 27 in a crash which fuelled controversy over the working hours of Europe's truckers.... The coachload of about 60 Dutch tourists were returning from a weekend in the French Alpine resort of Valmorel.
   French Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot sent commiserations to his Dutch counterpart Tineke Netelenbos and issued a statement suggesting the accident highlighted the overwork facing many truck drivers on European roads. "Without wishing to prejudice the results of the judicial inquest that will be held, the Minister stresses the importance of a sustainable reduction in working hours," it said.
   French truck drivers recently blockaded oil refineries as part of a protest over government measures which they argue will actually increase their working hours. Gayssot has insisted the dispute, which centres on complicated new rules surrounding the treatment and payment of hours spent off the road, is based on a misunderstanding. He said the regulations would in fact cap at a maximum of 56 hours the amount of time that a driver can spend on the road each week, fewer than the 60 hours stated in a European Union directive.
   [This casts some light on the original article about this blockade - see 3/12/2002 below. If it was the truck driver's fault, at least this particular individual will not be causing any more deaths because he was one of the seven fatalities.]

4. NaviCare announces new agreements, Business Wire BW2552 Mar 18 2002 9:59 Eastern via AOLNews.
   ST. PAUL, Minn...- *NaviCare announces new client relationships with Memorial Health University Medical Center (Savannah GA) and St. Joseph Hospital (Omaha NE).... NaviCare Systems is the nation's leading provider of operations management, resource optimization and dynamic workflow solutions for the healthcare enterprise....
   NaviCare's rapid implementation methodology allows clients to begin realizing quantitative, qualitative and strategic benefits after short installation periods. Quantitative benefits result from reduced diversions, increased admissions and bed utilization, increased caregiver and support staff productivity, and reduced overtime....

5. American Society of Employers' survey finds southeast Michigan employers are cutting costs, PRNewswire 03/18/2002 11:57 EST via AOLNews.
   SOUTHFIELD, Mich. - ...Many [employers] continue to look for ways to control costs in the wake of the recent recession. According to the American Society of Employers' 2002 ASE Salary Survey - Southeast Michigan Region, these cost-controlling measures include hiring freezes, reductions in overtime pay, and smaller pay increases....
   [Hopefully "reductions in overtime pay" includes reductions in overtime. In any case, overtime is getting demotivated. Ah yes -]
   Other[?] cost savings measures taken in 2001:...
   Eliminating overtime, 49%..\..of companies...
   Cross training, 28%...
   [There is one bad one in the whole list of seven that we've spared you -]
   Reduction in training, 25%...

1. 3/17 Surgeon shortage possible, by Linda Tanner, AP-NY-03-16-02 1200EST via AOLNews.
   [More nonsense from the "wonderful," "everybody should do it like this" healthcare system -]
   Doctors say general surgeons could wind up on the critical list if today's medical students continue to choose a comfortable lifestyle over grueling, unpredictable work hours. The number of applicants to residency programs in general surgery has dropped 30% in the past 9 years, according to studies in the March issue of the journal Archives of Surgery.
   [It's time American "management," especially in healthcare, realized that you don't have to want a "comfortable" lifestyle to not want "grueling, unpredictable" hours - you just have to be a normal non-masochist - and that one of the biggest, if not The Biggest responsibilities of management is smooth scheduling, a major part of which is Setting Limits.]
   The trend began in the 1980s, but last year was the first since then that the number of general surgery positions offered to U.S. medical school graduates exceeded the number of students interested, the studies say. Medical students are more likely to be married and female than they were a generation ago. And unlike large numbers of their predecessors, many actually want a life outside medicine, according to the studies....
   [Let's hear it for the ladies! - Maybe women are going to "save the world" after all.]

2. 3/17 Mickey's secret out as Disney opens French park, by Tim Hepher, Reuters 09:27 03-16-02 via AOLNews.
   PARIS...- After a decade of seducing European children...
   [whoops, Tim - gotta be careful with that kinda language in "let us prey" America today]
   ...with the illusion that his Magic Kingdom is real, Mickey Mouse is finally opening cinema's bag of tricks to show them what their parents dare not reveal - it's all fake.... Around 150 children from disadvantaged families across Europe were admitted first into the new Walt Disney Studios on the same site as its first European park, and made a beeline for stunt displays and behind-the-scenes tours, a spokeswoman said.... Euro Disney hopes the second part will increase annual visitors to more than 17m by 2003 from 12.2m now. It also hopes its French guests will stay longer, perhaps overnight, to fill up extra leisure time created by a recent reduction in the national working week to 35 hours....
   [Good God, don't tell us progress is actually good for business?!? (Don't tell the American right -they'll go apoplectic!) And for gawdsake, don't try and pull the "Santa Claus" wool over the eyes of European kids - they've had enough of our self-spacing myths - they want the straight story, especially the disadvantaged ones.]

3. 3/18 Britain to rush in blitz on soaring street crime [sic], Reuters 07:44 03-17-02 via AOLNews.
   [We thought the rosy news out of Britain, or rather the lack of bad news, was a trifle odd with its American-style layoffs, lengthening workweeks and uncontrolled immigration, and still supposedly "low unemployment." So now the shutters open a crack and we glimpse "the Rest of the Story" -]
   LONDON...- Admitting that it was presiding over a frightening rise in street crime, Britain's Labour government said on Sunday it was accelerating a blitz on thieves and muggers in a bid to restore public confidence.... "Given the enormous rise in the level of street crime, and in the concern about it over the last 2-3 months in particular, I think we should accelerate"..\..a programme bringing together police and court authorities in England to tackle street crime, which rose by 13% in 2000-2001..\..Home Secretary David Blunkett said....
   The Sunday Telegraph newspaper said convicted criminals released early and electronically tagged under a recent government initiative had committed hundreds of crimes including rapes and kidnappings after their release.... Blunkett has also come under fire from thousands of police officers who have overwhelmingly rejected his planned pay reforms.... "We need to work together," he said, hinting that he was also ready to compromise over proposals to cut overtime pay.
   [So let's get this straight. Britain, like America, has been making it easier to earn a dishonest living than an honest one by keeping a pre-technology workweek of 40 hours and depressing wages by developing an officially denied labor glut. And now they think the solution to the resulting crime wave is longer workweeks and further consolidation of employment. Brilliant. 'Course these limey morons will never look across the Channel and admit the Frogs are right. Well, almost never. See "The French Miracle" on 6/20/2001 #1.]

1. Japan PM suggests more holidays to cure recession, Reuters 06:50 03-15-02 via AOLNews.
   TOKYO...- For a workaholic nation, Japan's latest proposal to cure its worst business slump since World War II may come as a surprise - more public holidays. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi asked his advisers on Friday to look into the potential economic impact if Japan increased the number of national holidays or changed the way holidays were concentrated.... Monthly department store sales are directly affected by how many Saturdays, Sundays and holidays there are during the month..\..Economics Minister Heizo Takenaka said.... Koizumi has asked the government to investigate whether weary workers are refraining from spending because they don't have enough free time...Takenaka said.
   [Hey, this might be easier to get past Japan's near-sighted business leadership who, despite Japan's being probably the most automated economy in the world, still equate manhours with output. But it's not going to come close to the effectiveness of automatically fluctuating adjustment of the workweek against unemployment, especially now that Japan has broken its tradition of lifetime employment and started copying America's unwise practice of mass layoffs. And especially when -]
   Japan already has among the world's highest number of public holidays. But holidays for Japanese workers have traditionally been concentrated around the New Year, the "Golden Week" from late April through early May, and "Obon" in mid-August, when people return to their hometowns to honour relatives who have passed away. Because of the concentration, prices tend to be higher in those periods, which is an impediment to spending," Takenaka said..\..
   [So here's another application of "the more concentration, the less circulation," which is usually applied to the concentration of economywide personal $income.]
   "Because of time constraints, a lot of people can't spend money even though they want to. A case in point is people who work 24 hours a day like yourselves," Takenaka told reporters after a meeting of the Council of Economic and Fiscal Policy.
   Japan's workers are known for spending day and night at offices, often taking dinner at work. Karoshi - death from overwork - [see article below!] became a buzzword in the 1980s when the Japanese labour force secured its reputation for spending countless hours at work and putting work before hobbies, social commitments and even family.
   [Maybe that phenomenon, in the early-to-mid 80s, was actually the seed of Japan's chronic recession, and not the disastrous late-80s discovery of American downsizing.]
   Private-sector consumption, in which personal spending plays a big role, accounts for nearly two-thirds of Japan's GDP. [We heard 60%.] A steady slide in consumer spending is ringing alarm bells in the government.... "There are many ways of looking at this, but you can say it is part of our plan to tap into under-utilised economic resources," Takenaka said....
   [Good move. While it still practiced lifetime employment, Japan already had a high rate of utilizing its economic resources, that is, its potential domestic markets. So it didn't take much of a departure from that policy to start domestic spending a-plummeting. Japan has proven, for the benefit of all the rest of the world, that any economy with potential domestic spending already so fully activated just needs a little more income concentration (and de-activation) to experience a severe and indefinite downturn. The one critical problem that Koizumi, Takenaka and the 'more-holidays' approach to timesizing does not address is the loss of personal and family financial security which the lifetime employment policy so effectively provided while it remained intact. A one- or two-time jerky downsizing of the work year via an arbitary and rigid increase in public holidays is not going to offer people the kind of financial security they need to really spend freely. The only form of timesizing that can provide that kind of security is highly visible and automatic (no vulnerability to political holdup!) fluctuating adjustment of the workweek against unemployment - and "unemployment" should be broadened to include welfare, disability, forced retirement, homelessness, prisons and karoshi. This essentially makes the level of the workweek market-determined. As Milton Friedman said, "Let the market decide!" - and not short-sighted self-destructive businessmen.]

2. High court upholds ruling linking overwork, employee's death, Kyodo News via AP-NY-03-15-02 0232EST via AOLNews.
   NAGOYA...- The Nagoya High Court on Friday upheld a lower court ruling in Sept/99 which revoked a decision of a labor standards inspection office not to pay compensation for the death of a company employee from overwork. Presiding judge Katsuji Ouchi concluded that overwork at Sumitomo Densetsu Co. aggravated the asthma of and led to the death of Tatsuo Suzuki, a 49-year-old worker at the electrical installation company.
   Compensation, such as...a pension, should be paid to Suzuki's wife, Miho, the high court said in dismissing an appeal by the Nagoya Higashi Labor Standards Office.
   According to the ruling, Suzuki suffered from asthma from dust at a construction site in 1977. As his asthma worsened while he carried out electrical work from 1988 to 1989, he asked the company to move him to a less busy position. His request was ignored and he died at the age of 42 [sic!] in November 1989.
   [Hooboy. Who screwed this up, Kyodo or AP? Did the guy die at 42 or at 49, as above??]
   Suzuki's wife filed a damages suit against Sumitomo Densetsu, which agree to pay 60m yen to her in an out-of-court settlement reached in Jan/2000. However, her claim for a pension was rejected by the labor standards office....

• SDG&E, AFL-CIO partner to help workers hurt by Sept. 11 tragedy, PRNewswire 03/14/2002 14:37 EST via AOLNews.
  SAN DIEGO...- San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) and the AFL-CIO [American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations] Labor Council are joining together to provide targeted assistance to workers who have been affected by the economic recession in the aftermath of 9/11.
  "While the local economy is slowly rebounding, we know that many workers still are experiencing shortened work weeks, layoffs and financial strain because of an economic slowdown following 9/11," said Stephen Davis, senior VP of Customer Service & External Relations for the Sempra Energy Utilities, SDG&E and Southern California Gas Co. [SoCal]. "Often, we can help these workers deal with...bills quickly, if we know their situation."...
  [It would be nice to be able to quantify the number of layoffs prevented after 9/11 by workweek reduction - "timesizing, not downsizing."]

3/13/2002  primitive Timesizing in the news -

• [Wondrous to relate, the NYT actually has an over half-page article on timesizing France today and even mentions the 35-hour workweek in four spots! The headline and first para even admit France's success. So, desperate to slur France for something, this is what the Times managed to come up with -]
  Though France booms, voters find politics blah, by Suzanne Daley, NYT, A3.
  [This from the "nation's newspaper" of a nation that in 1996 had the lowest voter turnout for a presidential election since 1924?! And the only reason the apathy and "blahdom" wasn't worse in 2000 was the campaigns of Nader and Buchanan, especially Nader?! The NYT should know that so far the race between Jospin and Chirac is close, so by definition it ain't blah to any who aren't terminally off politics. First para, omitting immediate zoomdown to 'human interest' -]
  PARIS... - France has undergone a remarkable economic and social transformation in the last few years....
  [But will any of this good news about "failed France" in this "liberal" NY paper penetrate to the talkshows in the American heartland? It goes on, dribbling in its own bizarre praise-dilutant -]
  Yet for all the economic renewal under way, the country's political scene remains largely unchanged.... Economically, the country looks quite different these days [from the days of the previous presidential election in 1995]. The double-digit unemployment figures and the vast array of state-owned companies are gone. As the 20th century came to a close, France - famously state-heavy, overtaxed and tradition-bound - had the fastest-growing economy in Europe.
  But [the] change goes beyond that. The country has also cut its work week to 35 hours, guaranteed women parity in party nominations for most offices and even created a newfangled type of marriage that can be dissolved on three months' notice.... Long lunches are out. Takeout is in. Wine consumption is plummeting..\.. France has...begun overhauling its curriculums and questioning the fairness of its most elite schools. New admission policies have been put in place to help the disadvantaged.... In this atmosphere a race between Mr. Chirac and Mr. Jospin, who have been at the center of France's political life for more than two decades, looks out of step.
  [Unless you recall the French Minister of Women's Affairs a few years ago who said something like, the more innovatively you act, the more traditionally you have to look.]
  ...Though Mr. Chirac is labeled center-right, some political analysts point out that if he went to America he would stand far to the left of Al Gore.
  [So would virtually every other politician in the world, now the Democrats have abandoned their base.]
  For instance, Mr. Chirac does not talk of eliminating the Socialist policy of a 35-hour work week, only adapting it.
  [Workweek reduction is not socialist. It is the antidote and cure for socialism. (And for short-term unsustainable capitalism which it transforms into long-term sustainable capitalism.) And it was introduced by the French right-of-center UDF party on a voluntary basis ("Robien Law") four years before the left brought it in anyway. In the USA, 69 years ago, it was brought in by a conservative Democrat - is ex-KuKluxKlan conservative enough for you? (Ex-klansman Sen. Hugo Black later became Justice Black of the US Supreme Court!) In 1933, FDR took one look at the 30-hour workweek bill that sailed through the United States Senate on April 6 by a vote of 53-30, yelled "It's not MINE and I want to be savior of the nation. It's SOCIALISM!", and himself proceeded to jump into more micromanaging socialism than you could shake a stick at. Instead of that one single powerful central regulation that would have solved the Depression in less than a year, "Saint" FDR started grabbing for any and every alternative idea he could find - like some kind of short-order cook - to stop the shorter-hours momentum - admitting his mistake two years later when he'd succeeded. The sacred and unquestionable New Deal had nothing positive of its own. It was purely and totally a reaction against something, namely...work sharing. It was a desperate grab for anything that would pacify labor without giving them what they really needed - a start on sharing the vanishing work. FDR came up with social security, workmen's comp, unemployment insurance, and minimum wage. He came up with a whole alphabet soup of job creation programs, the WPA, CCC, NRA, NIRA, TVA... on and on, NONE of which worked until the war. The greatest success of the New Deal in solving the 25% unemployment at the core of the Depression was to get it down to 14% in 1937 - not even down to the halfway mark at 12.5%! FDR finally "solved" the Depression in America in 1942 the same way Hitler solved it in Germany by 1936 - he militarized. Militarization takes wage-depressing excess working hours out of the job market. Wages rise (we "needed" a wartime wage&price control board), spending rises, and production rises. The famed "wartime boom" materializes. FDR could have done the same thing 9 years early the intelligent way by letting the 30-hour workweek pass the House. France's experience with coming down to only a 35-hour workweek? The NYT article has 3 charts -]
  By the numbers - France rebounding -
  • France's economy has undergone a resurgence. The unemployment rate is down...
  • ...the inflation rate has remained low...
  • ...and the gross domestic product is growing
  [Not even Germany has had this much success despite its long vacations and spotty company-level hours reductions (eg: Volkswagen). The only substantial difference between the two big Euro economies is France's lower statutory workweek. But clueless about the multiplier effect generated by a workweek reduction such as France's, the Times damns it with faint praise -]
  ...The 35-hour work week, instituted by Mr. Jospin's government as a job-generating program, has been a mixed success.
  [Not surprising since the government didn't lead by redesigning overtime (OT) legislation to automate OT-to-training&hiring conversion, or even by applying the 35-hr week to itself first!]
  It allowed an overhaul of many outdated work rules and created some jobs, but it has been a particular hardship for small businesses, some of which have been able to postpone taking the plunge.
  [This is just a matter of more sophisticated transition design. The kind you learn from experience, and we have not paid much attention to the wealth of experience available to us around the world as we cut the 80-hour workweek in half between 1840 and 1940.]
  The government has not yet figured out how to pay for the subsidies it doled out to help shoulder the cost of eliminating four hours from the average work week.
  [If they'd done it the Timesizing way of taxing overtime (and exempting training&hiring), this would not be an issue.]
  For some small business owners like Ramon Caiero, who owns a cafe in the wealthy district known as Passy-Auteuil in western Paris, the policy has been a nightmare.
  [OK, here's where we find an affluent small -business owner and listen to his whining - pooor little rich guy.]
  Restaurants are still in a transition phase, with workers allowed to work 39 hours a week, down from 42. Mr. Caiero says the policy is only prompting his employees to take extra jobs on the side, most of them for cash under the table.
  [That's why the Timesizing program has a moonlighting tax in Phase 3.]
  To make ends meet...
  [...oh yeah, like a guy with an expensive restaurant in a wealthy district is really strapped...]
  Mr. Caiero, like many owners who are not on salary, works in the kitchen himself.
  [Now comes the real reason, somewhat garbled -]
  "But my customers don't want my cooking - they want the chef," he said. "And I would like to get out of here sometimes."
  [Let him stop cooking and see how much there is to a chef without it. So basically he comes around to arguing for the shorter workweek - so he "can get out of here sometimes." Great - but of course he won't admit that and maybe doesn't even realize it. He doesn't want to decide between his self-important indispenability and his desire to "get a life." He's too insecure to do what every really great chef does, juju his customers by painstakingly training his souschefs in his "secrets." So with typical French "complain anyway" attitude -]
  Mr. Caiero says he may leave his ballot blank as a protest this year. "Where are my choices?" he asks.
  [Your choices, moron, are Chirac, who will weaken the "radical" 35-hour workweek so you can't get out of there at all, and Jospin, who will strengthen it so you can get out of there more often. Get out and vote or for God's sake, quit your bogus bellyaching. Put up or shut up!]

• French truckers block refineries, oil depots, Reuters 14:16 03-11-02 via AOLNews.
  [here's an intelligence-doubting example of the paranoia and stupidity in even a simple cut from 39 to 35 hours a week, never mind a workweek that automatically adjusts against unemployment by an hour every 6 or 12 months -]
  MARSEILLE...- French truck drivers blocked refineries and oil depots on Monday, triggering a run on [gasoline] in some areas and snarling traffic in protest at government plans they say hide longer hours, unions said. [Truck] drivers, angered by a new government decree on working hours and overtime pay for the [trucking] industry blocked at least 12 refineries and oil depots, mostly in the south, and some [gas] stations near Lyon and Marseille had already run dry....
  [Now is this "new" decree simply that same 35-hour workweek legislation that was applied to large companies on Feb. 15, 2000 and to small companies and government on Jan. 1, 2002, or are we talking about some trucking-specific wrinkle on that general legislation? Unclear.]
  The drivers say that udner the new decree they will not be paid for all the hours they work as the...government's decision to cut the working week to 35 hours does not account for the time spent unloading or at a standstill..\..
  [Why the hey would they not be paid for all their time on the job and that whole workload be adjusted to fit the 35-hour week, or 30 this week and 40 next, etc.? Very tough to figure out what is really going on in France with this little, and this unsympathetic, English-language reporting. But little as is the news we get out of France, it is volumes more than we get out of Netherlands and Germany, which have apparently made strides along timesizing lines. Maybe the French are the only ones bold enough (or imprudent enough) to communicate their efforts to big workoholic US of A, the "land of the free" that has incarcerated a record 2 million of its own citizens and is sliding back decades in its actual number of working hours per week. "Freedom" in a land that has the shortest annual vacation in the developed world at the dawn of the Third Millennium despite robotization and automation, and is creeping upward and backward in working hours per year? We are the laughing stock of Europe, but they are wisely very quiet about it and are letting us turn ourselves into another India as fast as we can, since Europe will then replace us as top dog.]
  But while drivers threatened to continue their action indefinitely, the Transport Ministry and employers said there had been a misunderstanding and the new work accord would not short-change drivers or mean they had to work longer hours....
  [So is this paranoia on the part of truck drivers, or, lack of communication on the part of the Transport Ministry and employers?? Qui sait (= who knows)?]
  Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot told Reuters the accord proposed by the government, and signed by the [trucking] industry's largest union, would actually cut working hours. "They will be paid more and work less," he said, adding he was ready to meet union representatives, not to change things but to explain them.
  Unions said they targeted France's key petrochemical and refining hub near Marseille and Avignon in the south, but action also spread to refineries in the north.... Truckers in the northwest drove at a snail's pace causing traffic jams..\.. Paris was unaffected....
  The blockades follow a weekend demonstration in Paris by thousands of doctors to protest against pay and work conditions and are reminiscent of nationwide strikes and protests by public service workers last December....