A manager with France’s national railway company SNCF who has been paid €60,000 a year, to stay at home and do “nothing” for the past 12 years has sued the firm for €500,000 in lost earnings. Charles Simon, 55, says he was shunted “into a cupboard” – put on indefinite paid gardening leave – after …
Continue reading ‘It’s difficult to get work done in France’ »
Over the last 10 years, thousands of businesses across the United States – from big corporations to storefront shops – have used arbitration to create an alternative system of justice . There, rules tend to favor businesses, and judges and juries have been replaced by arbitrators who commonly consider the companies as their clients. The …
Continue reading ‘Our corporatocracy – depriving citizens of their day in Court’ »
“After four decades of EU membership, Britain’s formal relationships with the rest of Europe are governed by a tangle of treaties, institutions and laws. The reach of the EU into British life is so far-reaching that Brexit would require a renegotiation of most of Britain’s international obligations. A new trade agreement would have to be …
Continue reading ‘The proposed British exit from the EU – just too complicated?’ »
If we really want the parties to reconnect with voters, we should import – from Australia, say, or Brazil – a far more important innovation: compulsory voting. Obliging people to cast a ballot may sound illiberal, but it has the huge advantage of forcing political parties “to reach beyond their comfort zone”. Labour/Democrats could no …
“No one knows how many species of organisms have existed since life began. Thirty billion is a commonly cited figure, but the number has been put as high as 4000 billion. Whatever the actual total, 99.9% of all species that have ever lived are no longer with us…. For complex organisms the average lifespan of a …
