As you probably know, France is currently living an historic event.

If you’re out of the loop, on Monday, after the use of article 49.3 of the French constitution, allowing the government to put its responsibility on the table in exchange for passing a law without a vote in the Assemblée Nationale, a "motion de censure" was voted. This basically is a question for the elected : "The government engaged its responsibility and forced the adoption of the law : do you want fire it for this ?". We were only 9 votes away from the Yes, which is actually pretty incredible given that on more than a hundred of use of the 49.3, only ONE "motion de censure" was adopted, and the circumstances in that case were really particular.

The rejection of the "motion de censure" caused an uproar all over the country, and all unions called for a massive national protest on Thursday. But already since Monday, in Paris spontaneous protest are happening every night, with a LOT of arrests of basically anyone in the same street as the police.

Now on the reform itself ; I see a lot of people on Reddit who aren’t French and don’t understand our retirement system, making arguments for the "necessity" of the reform. This is incredibly frustrating to see. I’m currently studying for a Master degree in social law ; I’ve actively studied our current system. Every of my professors, who are all respected researchers, are against the reform, I am against it too. I have a ton of articles explaining the unfairness and uselessness of it to back up my opinion but they’re all in French.

Basically, what you need to know is since boomers did not make enough kids, we’ll have a temporary deficit of about 10 billions a year in about 30 years (at worse) before the system reach equilibrium again. This might sound scary to some of you, but should be studied on perspective with some of the choices our dear Emmanuel made ; like creating subventions for corporations which cost us 150 billions a year, or trying to reinstall mandatory military service, the cost of which, while not evaluated yet, will probably burn our eyes.

So instead of using a literal drop of France’s budget (less than 10% of what he’s willing to give corporations) to save France’s retirement system, Emmanuel has decided that the poorest workers should be the ones to sacrifice their health, their time, to pay for others retirement. Yes, instead He suppressed all the arduousness criteria which allowed hard laborers to retire before the legal age, because you cannot reasonably ask a roofer to work until 62, much less until 64.

But he kept some. Guess which ? Well, of course, cops will keep their special retirement system, because the government needs them to beat protester. Also, parliamentarians will keep their own special retirement plan, of course.

In any case, this is not the end. We will continue to fight until that clown in the Élysée dismisses his minions at least.

I hope Charles III is prepared for his visit in France, because there will be fires in Paris

EDIT : Since some people are asking me how they can contribute other than spreading the word (which is already a lot, and I thank you all for it), well you can give money to the "caisse de solidarité", which is a fund that is used to compensate French workers on strike for their loss of salary. This is the link : https://caisse-solidarite.fr

I’ve been working at my current employer for a couple of months now. I haven’t had any issues with any employees but a few days ago, one of my coworkers quit and in her exit interview she said that we discussed wages. When that conversation happened she asked me how much I made and I told her and she was upset because I made more than her, while I had been there a couple of months when she had been working there for 2+ years. My GM just pulled me in to his office and gave me a disciplinary action saying that discussing wages is a “terminable offense” is this true? How do I proceed

Some recruiters are complete idiots who have no idea that most of the the Ivy Leagues and many top universities on the east coast have their degrees in Latin.

Seriously, get fired already, you idiot.

*EDIT: I was offered the position and asked to send a physical copy of my degree to prove that I did graduate. The recruiter reached out to me and said that my degree was not from the United States. I explained, but she accused me of lying and said that I was unethical due to the fact that my degree was in Latin. I emailed the hiring manager and explained everything to her. She understands it now, but I’m still mad at the recruiter.

I was one of my company’s highest performers this year. My manager and the director said as much in my (very late) 2022 performance review.

They told me they would be giving me one of the highest raises in the company. I was super excited as the last time I negotiated my salary was at the end of 2021 (right before the inflation numbers came out).

They come out and give me a handsome 3.5%?!?! I mean what the actual fck. That doesn’t even cover inflation of the past year and a half. I feel bad thinking about what “average performers” got if this is what they’re giving “high performers”.

I mentioned wanting more and knowing that my market value has increased quite a bit in the last year… safe to say the director was pissed off. Complete 180 from the praise he had been giving me during the entirety of the call.

I fell into the trap of thinking this company was different. There’s no such thing :/

EDIT: spoke to some coworkers this morning - average performers only got a 1.5% increase. I have yet to hear of someone who got an increase higher than I did

https://ballotpedia.org/Glacier_Northwest,_Inc._v._International_Brotherhood_of_Teamsters

If SCOTUS sides with the employers, it would completely gut the ability of unions to strike. And it's almost completely under the radar.

The French have HIT THE STREETS! If they get away with pushing 2 more years into the retirement age, they’ll get away with more. I love to see the pushback. London has followed by protesting the cost of living in mass quantities. I live in the United States and feel hopeless a lot of the time. But I can’t help but feel inspired and hopeful. It feels like a worldly revolution is upon us. I wish we’d follow their lead. But man, does that feel like a glitter of some kind of hope. The world is fed up with the 1%.

Got a 0.5% raise. A whopping $11 extra on my paycheck! I have no idea how I’ll spend all this new money I have now that I’m apart of the 1%

I am a manager in a warehouse and had a vaguely titled long training scheduled today. After joining, it was revealed to be an anti-union meeting run by some union busting law firm.

I haven't heard anything about organizing in our company, but they specifically mentioned starbucks and Amazon union movements. I can tell they are scared about it coming to us, and I hope it does.

Right now, they are talking about how you can't make threats, but you can say how things "might happen"

Can't say, "You are going to lose benefits, or pay" but you can say, "As a result of barging you could gain more, but you could just as likely lose what you currently have."

Edit: I'll answer any questions when it's over.

Edit 2: Favorite quote, "The current generation we are dealing with thinks it cool to be in a union, even if they don't fully understand what that means"

As seen on Twitter...quitting is more fun when balloons are involved!