France’s Shorter Workweek Spurs Strikes

PARIS —  France’s new 35-hour workweek took legal effect Tuesday, but across the country, truckers, bus drivers, postal employees, hospital staff and other workers staged strikes for more pay, more new hires and other demands.

Mass transit was crippled in Paris, with only about half the normal number of buses and Metro trains running. Though the disruption was not as bad as originally feared, many Parisians stayed home or went to work in their cars, on foot, by bicycle--even on roller blades. In seven provincial cities, mass transit was hobbled or shut down.

Meanwhile, for the second straight day, French truck drivers used their vehicles to block commercial road traffic at ports and borders and on major highways. At one point, 72 roadblocks were snarling traffic from the French end of the Channel Tunnel to the southern port city of Marseilles.

The drivers were protesting the government’s decision last month to allow exceptions for them in the reduced workweek law. Trucking companies won those concessions after their own blockade operation.

The new workweek, down from the previous 39 hours, is a centerpiece of Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin’s effort to bring down France’s unemployment rate, which is at its lowest level in seven years but is still 10.6%. Many business leaders object that the law hamstrings them in the face of foreign competition.

As for labor leaders, many of them now claim that the law that was supposed to decrease joblessness and give French working men and women more free time is being exploited by employers as an excuse to give no more raises. Moreover, in many industries, the reduced week has been used to coax concessions from the labor force, including an end to differentials paid for night shifts and weekends.

Unions object that their members will get no rewards if greater productivity and profitability result from new work schedules. And except for the lowest-paid, who under the law are supposed to suffer no loss in income, less time worked will often mean a smaller paycheck. Even if employers keep personnel on the job for 39 hours, the overtime bonus they need pay under the law this year is only 10%.

“In the private sector, the real winners are the employers,” Bernard Marais, an economist at the University of Paris, told the news service Agence France-Presse.

The government claims that the 35-hour week, which many businesses began adopting last year or even in 1998, has already generated or saved 160,000 jobs. But independent analysts are skeptical, crediting the bulk of new hires to Europe’s economic upswing.

The shorter workweek, the brainchild of Employment Minister Martine Aubry, was supposed to cover all companies in France with more than 20 employees as of Tuesday, and the rest starting in 2002. But in only 17% of the large companies has the method of applying the law been formally agreed to by management and labor representatives. Civil servants too still have to negotiate their own agreements.

Some unions representing French truckers, many of whom earn only $1,000 a month, are demanding an 11.4% raise so that if the drivers worked less in the future, their paychecks would be unaffected. Employees of the Paris Metro and bus network have a bevy of demands, including more rest time as well as higher wages and more new hires.

After the Ministry of Transportation agreed Tuesday to talks, the truckers began lifting their blockades, which had caused colossal traffic tie-ups in many areas.