France! OMG!

[sabotabby]

More on locustinferno's and dobrovolets' LJs.

From frandroid: Layton=Lenin?

And more on immigration: Great post. (Hat tip: aaronfreed.)

A funny video about the obstacles that face neo-Nazis.

Comments

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

A lot of it has to do with the union bureaucracy. The fact that in France you can choose which union to belong to, or whether or not to join the unions, based on your political outlook, and that you can go on strike and take an active, militant role whether or not you are a union member, means that the union leaders are under a lot of pressure to not lag behind the rage in the workplace, whereas in countries like the U.S. and Canada where labor relations are heavily institutionalized and state-regulated, the union leaders tend to think of themselves more as "partners" with the bosses and responsible more for calming down anger than giving it vent. In this case also, I think a lot of it also has to do with the recent revolt in the banlieus.

[sabotabby]

This is true, but I'm sure there are historical reasons for why union bureaucracies in North America grew that way.

Banlieus=Parisian suburbs?

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

This is true, but I'm sure there are historical reasons for why union bureaucracies in North America grew that way.

Absolutely. I don't know about the Candian history, but in the U.S. it's largely because during the CIO upsurge the CP-aligned radicals consciously signed onto the New Deal popular front. In terms of union politics that meant subordination to John L. Lewis and incorporation into the state apparatus by way of the National Labor Relations Act. In Canada I suspect it may just be because so many of your most important unions are in fact U.S. unions.

Banlieus=Parisian suburbs?

Yup.

[earthlingmike.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that, interesting. I heard recently that Germany has some even more different approaches to labor than what I'm familiar with. (I'm American)

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

Yeah, in Germany the union leaders serve on the boards of the companies, and there are "works councils" in several factories with joint union and management representation to deal with disciplinary and production issues. It means that on the one hand German unions don't give management the kind of absolutely free reign over production issues that their U.S. counterparts conceded after World War II, but it also means that they're even more tightly incorporated into the notion of "pitching in for the common good," i.e., for the health of shareholders' profits. The whole system is an odd hybrid of survivals of the workers' councils that arose in the 1918 revolution that overthrew the Kaiser and ushered in the Weimar Republic, the corporatist measures devised by the Nazi regime, and efforts by postwar Social Democrats to ensure industrial peace and business growth.

[earthlingmike.livejournal.com]

Well Germany is a leader in engineering, perhaps they're doing something right.

Wow, you know your history! I wish I could say the same for myself.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Fascinating. I didn't know half this stuff.

My take - which isn't mutually exclusive with yours - is below.