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That is very bad. I was always curious how life is in Europe (being the first world) but didn't think that's how the state of affairs would be. Is it because o

• TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  It's not "Europe", it's parts of it. France is particularly bad I hear, supposedly paralysed by unions. In the UK things are much better because unions lost a lot of their power in the 80s under Thatcher.
  • deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  • moe 14y ago
    Unions are not universally bad. As with all things it's a matter of dosage. Germany has pretty strong unions, too...
  • barrkel 14y ago
    FWIW, France has a lower proportion of unionized workforce than the US, and a lot lower than the UK in the public sector. It's more about cultural differences than any single thing like unions.
    • TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
      Oh, I didn't know that. I've just heard bad things about it. Although I might be confusing this with the government business laws in France, which are also a bit messy. There's a reason lots of French companies have exactly 49 employees.
      • barrkel 14y ago
        I found it amusing that, when in college, the only people who objected to the on-campus bar's pool table usage scheme - "winner stays, loser pays" - in the whole four years I was there, were French :)
• sjwright 14y ago
  It's also because of unions that far few people are losing their life at the workplace. Seems like a reasonable trade-off to me.