And the British scive off, too

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44% of British workers aged 20-39 have, in the past five years, lied about being sick in order get a day off work, compared to just 12% of those over 50. 29% of workers aged 20-39 consider “sickies” to be “additional holidays” that they deserve.  (RIAS/Daily Mail)

This is hardly new.  I remember reviewing employee attendance and noticed that one woman was taking exactly six weeks a year away from work, every year.   Her holiday allowance was three weeks, and she was apparently taking the extra three as bogus sick leave, regardless of health (two week’s longer total leave than anyone else).  I took her to task about her absences and was told that  she was “entitled to it”.  No,  I explained, it is there to protect your income for a while if you were genuinely ill.  It needs a doctor’s certificate.  She was astonished. Yes, it ought to have been sat upon ages before, but it does illustrate an attitude of mind.  “Get away with it if you can”.

The Epicurean approach is to give value for money, no cheating, no lying and no pressuring your work colleagues who have to cover for you.

Have a happy and fulfilling 2016!

 

 

It’s difficult to get work done in France

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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 telling his bosses about a €20m accounting fraud at an SNCF subsidiary in 2003. He says he has several times asked for another role, but nothing has been forthcoming – except for a monthly pay cheque. He is suing for compensation on the grounds that his career has been held back and he could have earned far more. The bizarre case highlighs the difficulties facing the over-staffed railway, whose employees are said to be all but immune from dismissal.  The same goes throughout French industry.

My nephew has been working in Paris with a mixed team of French and British workers.  He reports that the work ethic is scimpy, to say the least.  A delivery arrives ten minutes before work officially ends.  The Brits pile on and get the truck unloaded and the goods checked in; the French have disappeared.  A phone call comes in during lunchtime, and the French telephonist refuses to pick up the receiver.  Little things, But typical events in a French working day. Small  wonder that France is in a sad economic fix.

When I took over my old company I found the same attitude, and had to tell the staff, many of whom were a good deal older than myself, that either they looked after the customerd,  promptly and cheerfully, or they could clock-watch somewhere else. It did work.  They turned out to be great, when they grasped the idea.

On the other hand, I do have this love affair with the French way of life ……….the climate, the food, the countryside, the general attitude to life, even the lack of logic.  I am no capitalist, but even I agree that you can’t run a successful economy (or company) with a part-time attitude.

Our corporatocracy – depriving citizens of their day in Court

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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 change has been swift and virtually unnoticed, even though it has meant that tens of millions of Americans have lost a fundamental right: their day in Court.  “This amounts to the wholesale privatization of the justice system,” says Myriam Gilles, a law professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. “Americans are being actively deprived of their rights”.

A 2011 Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for them to use the clauses to quash class-action lawsuits. Prevented from joining together as a group in arbitration, most plaintiffs gave up entirely, records show. Still, there are thousands of Americans who — either out of necessity or on principle — want their grievances heard and have taken their chances in arbitration. Little is known about arbitration because the proceedings are confidential and the federal government does not require cases to be reported. The secretive nature of the process makes it difficult to ascertain how fairly the proceedings are conducted.  This, of course, suits the companies involved.   Some state judges have called the class-action bans a “get out of jail free” card, because it is nearly impossible for one individual to take on a corporation with vast resources.

All it took was adding simple arbitration clauses to contracts that most employees and consumers do not even read. Yet at stake are claims of medical malpractice, sexual harassment, hate crimes, discrimination, theft, fraud, elder abuse and wrongful death, records and interviews show. (Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Michael Corkery of The New York Times).

This is the outward and visible sign of the power of the corporatocracy.  Apparently, no outrage has been heard in Congress and no peep out of the White House or anywhere else. Only the New York Times has protested.  Thus do our rights disappear out of the windown without a whimper. And it will be copied throughout Europe , you can be sure.  It is un-Epicurean and un- democratic and unwinds a system that reaches back to Anglo- Saxon days.

 

The proposed British exit from the EU – just too complicated?

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“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 signed with the EU—and more than 50 with other countries outside Europe, to make up for those annulled by Brexit. Customs officials, border guards and trade negotiators would have to be hired to regulate and police trade and migration flows. New laws would have to be passed to replace EU regulations. Treaties between Britain and Ireland might have to be rewritten. And Scotland might—probably against its economic interest—leave the UK, which would lead to another round of political and economic turmoil. Given Brexit’s lack of obvious economic benefits, all this might prompt Britons to ask whether it is worth the bother.” (Prospect magazine,  December issue).

Unfortunately, the anger that has produced Trump in America is paralled throughout Europe as well, in the rise of right-wing parties (Poland being currently the most disagreeable).  People find scapegoats in circumstances of economic stress.  I was talking to someone from Holland, explaining that everything that goes wrong in the UK is blamed on Brussels and the EU bureaucracy. “It’s exactly the same in my country as well, ” he replied.   Instead of calmly getting together to try to put things right, the loudmouths and hotheads wish to pull it apart, mysteriously disappearing from public view, of course, when whole economies go pear- shaped as a result.

The (Epicurean) objective should be the most pleasant lives of as many people as possible, regardless of origin, gender, class and wealth.  Leaving the EU is an emotional reaction to problems that, with judgment, wisdom and thought can be put right.  Reform the thing, by all means, by leaving it is monumentally stupid.

 

Voting

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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 longer seek to win elections by “wooing liberal, public sector, welfare-dependent and unionised voters”, or the Tories/Republicans by wooing “the propertied, wealthy and rural”. It would also put an end to the favouritism shown to older voters, who vote in greater numbers than young people, with foreseeable results.  With compulsory voting, parties would have to consider the effects of their policies on everyone. Insisting that voters devote 20 minutes of their time once every four or five years to the act of voting seems a small price to pay. (Tim Montgomerie, The Times, quoted in The Week).

No doubt the argument would be that in  a “free” country no one should be forced to vote, and that not voting is a type of vote in any case.  I believe, on the contrary, that an Epicurean answer would be:  “You are either a citizen or you are not.  Maybe you don’t want the aggravation of being directly involved in politics (Epicureans don’t do that), but at least you should find the time to pick someone you trust to represent you.  Otherwise, don’t complain later.