French ATC Strike
 

French are at it again tomorrow from 04:00z for 24hrs:ugh:

If it is the same as for all the other strikes then retirement age and pensions.

I hear this one is due lower Ts&Cs for new joiners

French ATC manage to strike just about every year as the British holiday season starts; who are they trying to influence?

France is France and the French will defend their social rights to the bitter end....in this respect....they don't give a stuff about anybody else......

Good for them.

Can the wonderful EU bods in Brussels do something that, like the police force in the UK at least, make it illegal to strike? As isn't this the 3rd or 4th one already this year? I appreciate I may touch some nerves with this comment, but for the sake of all in the aviation business, please don't mess us around any more!

Binder, sorry to say, but,

France is France and the French will defend their social rights to the bitter end....in this respect....they don't give a stuff about anybody else......


If we had done some of this stuff, this profession may have been a more worthwhile option for our children/grandchildren


There are bigger things brewing in France, and it won't just be ATC on strike as this Summer progresses.



http://www.euronews.com/2016/03/09/p...rench-workers/

Regulate the market even further? Companies are very quick to demand deregulation in the name of a free market, yet when the workers act according to the concepts of a free market and dictate how much they should be compensated this is somehow just not cricket? It can't be okay to glibly say pay is low because it's a free market and there is a ready supply of employees, yet when there aren't enough qualified employees, those same employees can't sell their services at a higher rate... Either it's a free market or it isn't.

In a truly free market, if you don't show up for work I am allowed to fire you and hire someone else willing to do the job.

It is the fifth strike in the last two months, and the 46th in the last seven years. Bit ridiculous iMHO.

Exactly. I, therefore, would presume these workers possess a skill-set that takes time to retrain coupled with experience. The market will determine if the remuneration they demand is reasonable.

The obduracy of staff isn't the issue. All areas of the industry subsidising what is essentially a derived demand product, is.

Typical reply from a Yank (core dump). Probably never heard of sticking up for your own rights and for future generations. I understand it is over T&Cs for new starters, well worth fighting for especially in ATC. Earnestly waiting for the usual Ryanair rant!

That's their legal reason, but today's action is much more to do with the fact that there's also widespread national protest at the moment about the introduction of a new set of labour laws (the law "El Khomri"):

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/20...-and-the-euro/

The ATC action is timed to tie in with widespread demos today (e.g. our local airport ground access is blockaded as I write, and lorry drivers are blocking access to several fuel oil refineries - we engaged in a bit of panic topping up last night...).

captplaystation:

+1....Mr Valls verses the unions..wouldn't want to be in the middle of that....

Don't know much about this but, I have some measure of agreement in what Journey Man says.

Agree with Journey Man, he makes a very good point.

Ryanair had a petition on their webpage following the last strike where they wanted to regulate and have it illegal for ATC to strike. Yet they're the first one to use the benefits of the free market.

Hard to pick my winner between :
- ATC that keeps striking to a point you wonder when they're not on strike
- Pilots blaming ATC but whinging about their poor conditions and their miserable lifestyle (yet not acting. "You know, this is a hard like, you have to take or leave it. After all this is a competitive market and you knew it beforehand").

Arrh, well I'll go for ATC. I've just had enough of those poor puppies (pilots) crying on their poor fate while finding all excuses available not to take action to the next level for their own good.

I agree in principle with standing up for your rights and if the numbers worked in France they may even have my ear, but the economy is rubbish and France does not work. Enterprise and competition are actively discouraged on so many levels, especially through employees rights. Time and again I see small businesses go to the wall after 3 years (when the tax kicks in) or established business that cannot afford to grow because they can't afford to take someone on because of the high social charges (the healthcare, education and infrastructure are fantastic and that's got to be paid for somehow) or because once you hire somebody they have so many rights and it's so difficult to let them go if you downsize it cripples businesses. I have two friends who've taken a year off, paid rather than lay them off and re-hire. Now that's lovely if you can get it and great to have strong employment protection, but when businesses countrywide are closing or stagnant because of it it defeats the object in a country that's got over 10% unemployment and growing. I can't get behind industrial action for that.

TBH I think that's a bigger problem than workers rights. When the state levies taxes and social charges on a company in advance using an estimation of the profit it might make in the forthcoming tax year it's no wonder small businesses struggle or go under.

(Apologies for thread drift)

The situation this May in France reminds me of the same period in 1968. explosive and I concur with Capt Playstation assessment , this is just the begining.
Having just spend an evening with a young FO of a certain known airline that cannot be named and heard what their company plans for them , i do not like what this ultra liberal Trump-like society wants to achieve both economically and socially in the end. All working for minimal wages 15h a day 6 days a week like in the 1850, (or like in Ethiopia or Erithrea today ) ?

I also do not like to be affected by Strikes of any kind, but this is for the good cause , so I do support them, as they defend my way of life too.