While French unions step up protests against labour reforms, over 100,000 homes and businesses in France were left struggling without power on Thursday after workers in Brittany cut off the electricity supply from a power station. Demonstrators continue to hit the streets to voice their opposition to the legislation, sometimes getting involved in intense clashes with police.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFYhxQuv7TU]
I have given my cure already. Fire the whole damn lot of them just as president Ronald Reagan did with PATCO employees.
There will be short-term pain, but it won’t happen again.
PATCO Moment Needed
Ronald Reagan provided the precisely needed solution for union insanity. Reagan fired every PATCO (air traffic control union employee) who would not return to work when ordered.
I wrote about this once before, also in regards to France. Flashback October 12, 2010: French Unions On Strike Against Pension Reform, Disrupt Rail, Air Traffic.
The correct government response to this mess is to do what Reagan did to the PATCO workers, fire all the public union employees on strike and terminate their benefits.
Moreover, the French government should take this opportunity handed to them on a silver platter and go one step further to make a much needed change and dissolve all public unions. The same should happen in the US.
This would end the nonsense quickly and effectively. As in the US, there would be lines miles long to take those jobs at much lower wage and benefit levels.
Message From FDR
Inquiring minds are reading snips from a Letter from FDR Regarding Collective Bargaining of Public Unions written August 16, 1937.
All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management.
The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations.
Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees.
A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.
FDR was correct.
Reagan was correct, but he did not go far enough.Reagan should have dissolved every public union.
Had he done so. We would not have the pension/state budget crisis we have today.
Humorous France Flashbacks
- November 20, 2013: Mish Fined 8,000 Euros for Quoting French Blog
- December 24, 2013: Lawyer Advises Me “Don’t Go to France”; French Pub Fined €9,000 for Using “Undeclared Labor” after Customers Returned Empties to Bar
I did not pay the fine and I will not go to France. Somewhere along the line, France notified me in English that all further communication would be in French and that I had to respond in French.
I get express packets every now and again from France, in French and I throw them away.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
