Search results

"Immigrant Integration, Naturalization, and Citizenship" published on by Oxford University Press.

This past spring, French president Nicolas Sarkozy published a "point of view" article in the French newspaper Le Monde entitled "For Strong Unions." After writing of his desire to enhance the "social dialogue," he expressed his support for measures that would promote the organizational strength and legitimacy of the trade union movement. Indeed, just a week before, on April 11, five union confederations, together with the three most important employer groups in the country, announced a "common position on representivity, social dialogue and the financing of the trade union movement." The agreement, by requiring a minimum threshold of electoral support in certain "social elections" (for shop stewards and plant committees, for example), would give legal standing to only the largest confederations; it would also require that collective agreements on wages and working conditions be signed by these same unions in order to be valid.

Discusses developments in the French labor movement in light of President Nicolas Sarkozy's expressed desire to strengthen unions. After noting that the French labor movement is one of the weakest in Europe by virtue of low membership & calling its fragmentation "legendary," why it has been, nonetheless, so effective is addressed, highlighting strong public support for strike action & high strike levels. Brief attention is given to the symbiotic state-union relationship, indicating that Sarkozy's actions are driven by the state's subtle dependence on unions. Adapted from the source document.