Comments on: the first strikes of 2005 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2005/01/19/the-first-strikes-of-2005/ Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:39:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: Gary http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2005/01/19/the-first-strikes-of-2005/#comment-1823 Gary Fri, 21 Jan 2005 13:54:52 +0000 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2005/01/19/the-first-strikes-of-2005/#comment-1823 At least you get a number! My experiences here in Poland would have been 1000 times more pleasant had we received numbers. Instead, everyone hovers around the door of the appropriate civil workers' office, having a vague idea who's next and who exactly precedes you, with no way to protest officially when individuals skip line. I recall standing next to the door when a gentleman from Austria stepped in front of me, mumbled something to me in completely incomprehensible Polish, and then walked on in. The trick: get there at least half an hour before the office opens (i.e., at six in the morning) and be almost aggressively assertive. At least you get a number! My experiences here in Poland would have been 1000 times more pleasant had we received numbers. Instead, everyone hovers around the door of the appropriate civil workers’ office, having a vague idea who’s next and who exactly precedes you, with no way to protest officially when individuals skip line.

I recall standing next to the door when a gentleman from Austria stepped in front of me, mumbled something to me in completely incomprehensible Polish, and then walked on in.

The trick: get there at least half an hour before the office opens (i.e., at six in the morning) and be almost aggressively assertive.

]]> By: Ria http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2005/01/19/the-first-strikes-of-2005/#comment-1808 Ria Thu, 20 Jan 2005 22:53:53 +0000 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2005/01/19/the-first-strikes-of-2005/#comment-1808 Re. your last comment, Petite: it's funny how laid back UK citizenship can be (although it's not so funny if you come from one of the countries on the "white" list [sic]). My kids have dual nationality, British & Dutch. But don't tell the Dutch authorities 'cos they don't allow this, the UK consulate in Amsterdam warned me. Like you, I have a different family name from my partner, but get this: our kids have a Dutch passport in one name and a British passport in a completely different name. Noooo problem for us, said the UK consulate. Re. your last comment, Petite: it’s funny how laid back UK citizenship can be (although it’s not so funny if you come from one of the countries on the “white” list [sic]). My kids have dual nationality, British & Dutch. But don’t tell the Dutch authorities ‘cos they don’t allow this, the UK consulate in Amsterdam warned me. Like you, I have a different family name from my partner, but get this: our kids have a Dutch passport in one name and a British passport in a completely different name. Noooo problem for us, said the UK consulate.

]]> By: nardac http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2005/01/19/the-first-strikes-of-2005/#comment-1807 nardac Thu, 20 Jan 2005 16:19:56 +0000 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2005/01/19/the-first-strikes-of-2005/#comment-1807 whoooaaa! nice mega comment there Chameleon. yeah, Bourdieu, I miss him too. I saw his grave in Pere Lachaise and it's sad to see how there is nothing left on his grave. Maybe you already know him but if you want to hear even more depressing comments about the nasty effects of neo-liberalism, and general ideas on materialism and working culture, get some Raymond Williams. My god! I do need a drop of scotch now. whoooaaa! nice mega comment there Chameleon. yeah, Bourdieu, I miss him too. I saw his grave in Pere Lachaise and it’s sad to see how there is nothing left on his grave. Maybe you already know him but if you want to hear even more depressing comments about the nasty effects of neo-liberalism, and general ideas on materialism and working culture, get some Raymond Williams.

My god! I do need a drop of scotch now.

]]> By: petite http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2005/01/19/the-first-strikes-of-2005/#comment-1806 petite Thu, 20 Jan 2005 14:44:25 +0000 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2005/01/19/the-first-strikes-of-2005/#comment-1806 Hi Chameleon - I love the way you raise the tone of this website. Maybe some of your intelligence will rub off on me along the way. I feel less guilty about not having the time or inclination to post today now that there is a post-sized comment for you all to mull over... Hi Chameleon - I love the way you raise the tone of this website. Maybe some of your intelligence will rub off on me along the way.

I feel less guilty about not having the time or inclination to post today now that there is a post-sized comment for you all to mull over…

]]> By: Chameleon http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2005/01/19/the-first-strikes-of-2005/#comment-1805 Chameleon Thu, 20 Jan 2005 14:14:46 +0000 http://www.petiteanglaise.com/archives/2005/01/19/the-first-strikes-of-2005/#comment-1805 I too have experience of the sullenness of fonctionnaires in the local commune offices with their inimitable stench of trepidation blended with stale cigarette smoke in neighbouring Waffleland. To be honest, however, I suspect that by way of compensating for their country’s insignificance, the Waffelian counterparts to the officials petite describes are even more sour and unpleasant. Nardac, in response to the latter half of your perceptive comment, allow me to quote from my second favourite French sociologist, the sadly missed Pierre Bourdieu, firstly from the essay The Myth of ‘Globalization and the European Welfare State: “I’ve used the word ‘globalization’. It is a myth in the strong sense of the word, a powerful discourse, an idée force, an idea which has social force, which obtains belief. It is the main weapon in the battles against the gains of the welfare state. European workers, we are told, must compete with the least favoured workers of the rest of the world. The workers of Europe are thus offered as a model countries which have no minimum wage, where factory workers work twelve hours a day for a wage which is between a quarter and a fifth of European wages, where there are no trade unions, where thereis child labour and so on. And it is in the name of this model that flexible working, another magic word of neo-liberalism, is imposed, meaning night work, weekend work, irregular working hours, things which have always been part of employers’ dreams. In a general way, neo-liberalism is a very smart and very modern repackaging of the oldest ideas of the oldest capitalists)”. He brilliantly conveys the corrosive social effects of the systematic undermining of job security in all sectors of the economy: “It has emerged that job insecurity is now everywhere: in the private sector, but also in the public sector, which has greatly increased the number of temporary, part-time or casual positions; in industry, but also in the institutions of cultural production and diffusion – education, journalism, the media, etc. In all these areas it produces more or less identical effects, which become particularly visible in the extreme case of the unemployed: the destructuring of existence, which is deprived among other things of its temporal structures, and the ensuing deterioration of the whole relationship to the world, time and space. Casualization profoundly affects the person who suffers it: by making the whole future uncertain, it prevents all rational anticipation and, in particular, the basic belief and hope in the future that one needs in order to rebel, especially collectively, against present conditions, even the most intolerable. Added to these effects of precariousness on those directly touched by it there are effects on all the others, who are apparently spared. The awareness of it never goes away: it is present at every moment in everyone’s mind (…). It pervades both the conscious and unconscious mind. The existence of a large reserve army, which, because of the overproduction of graduates, is no longer restricted to the lowest levels of competence and technical qualification, helps to give all those in work the sense that they are in no way irreplaceable and that their work, their jobs, are in some way a privilege, a fragile, threatened privilege (as they are reminded by their employers as soon as they step out of line and by journalists and commentators at the first sign of a strike). Objective insecurity gives rise to a generalized subjective insecurity which is now affecting all workers in our highly developed economy”. Furthermore, as he goes on to point out (like the previous quote in his essay Job Insecurity is Everywhere Now): “Casualization of employment is part of a mode of domination of a new kind, based on the creation of a generalized and permanent state of insecurity aimed at forcing workers into submission, into the acceptance of exploitation”. Although Bourdieu has a lot more to say on the topic, I do not wish to tax petite’s patience too much. In closing, a brief word to Sigmund, Carl and Alfred: it is intellectually dishonest to lump all civil servants together in one category, labelling them as a “breed apart”. At the risk of sounding as if I am on the defensive, I am proud to be a European civil servant (perhaps the most despised category of official this side of the Pond), having hauled myself up to the ranks of an elite from very humble origins. For many years I was a single parent and it was precisely the prospect of a stable income and an indefinite contract that attracted me in the first place. We do not sit behind guichets and treat members of the public with contempt and I am not aware of any of my colleagues who do. Beware of sweeping generalisations! P.S. For anyone interested, the Bourdieu essays are published in a collection entitled (in English translation) Acts of Resistance (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1998). I too have experience of the sullenness of fonctionnaires in the local commune offices with their inimitable stench of trepidation blended with stale cigarette smoke in neighbouring Waffleland. To be honest, however, I suspect that by way of compensating for their country’s insignificance, the Waffelian counterparts to the officials petite describes are even more sour and unpleasant.
Nardac, in response to the latter half of your perceptive comment, allow me to quote from my second favourite French sociologist, the sadly missed Pierre Bourdieu, firstly from the essay The Myth of ‘Globalization and the European Welfare State:
“I’ve used the word ‘globalization’. It is a myth in the strong sense of the word, a powerful discourse, an idée force, an idea which has social force, which obtains belief. It is the main weapon in the battles against the gains of the welfare state. European workers, we are told, must compete with the least favoured workers of the rest of the world. The workers of Europe are thus offered as a model countries which have no minimum wage, where factory workers work twelve hours a day for a wage which is between a quarter and a fifth of European wages, where there are no trade unions, where thereis child labour and so on. And it is in the name of this model that flexible working, another magic word of neo-liberalism, is imposed, meaning night work, weekend work, irregular working hours, things which have always been part of employers’ dreams. In a general way, neo-liberalism is a very smart and very modern repackaging of the oldest ideas of the oldest capitalists)”.
He brilliantly conveys the corrosive social effects of the systematic undermining of job security in all sectors of the economy:
“It has emerged that job insecurity is now everywhere: in the private sector, but also in the public sector, which has greatly increased the number of temporary, part-time or casual positions; in industry, but also in the institutions of cultural production and diffusion – education, journalism, the media, etc. In all these areas it produces more or less identical effects, which become particularly visible in the extreme case of the unemployed: the destructuring of existence, which is deprived among other things of its temporal structures, and the ensuing deterioration of the whole relationship to the world, time and space. Casualization profoundly affects the person who suffers it: by making the whole future uncertain, it prevents all rational anticipation and, in particular, the basic belief and hope in the future that one needs in order to rebel, especially collectively, against present conditions, even the most intolerable.
Added to these effects of precariousness on those directly touched by it there are effects on all the others, who are apparently spared. The awareness of it never goes away: it is present at every moment in everyone’s mind (…). It pervades both the conscious and unconscious mind. The existence of a large reserve army, which, because of the overproduction of graduates, is no longer restricted to the lowest levels of competence and technical qualification, helps to give all those in work the sense that they are in no way irreplaceable and that their work, their jobs, are in some way a privilege, a fragile, threatened privilege (as they are reminded by their employers as soon as they step out of line and by journalists and commentators at the first sign of a strike). Objective insecurity gives rise to a generalized subjective insecurity which is now affecting all workers in our highly developed economy”.
Furthermore, as he goes on to point out (like the previous quote in his essay Job Insecurity is Everywhere Now):
“Casualization of employment is part of a mode of domination of a new kind, based on the creation of a generalized and permanent state of insecurity aimed at forcing workers into submission, into the acceptance of exploitation”.
Although Bourdieu has a lot more to say on the topic, I do not wish to tax petite’s patience too much.
In closing, a brief word to Sigmund, Carl and Alfred: it is intellectually dishonest to lump all civil servants together in one category, labelling them as a “breed apart”. At the risk of sounding as if I am on the defensive, I am proud to be a European civil servant (perhaps the most despised category of official this side of the Pond), having hauled myself up to the ranks of an elite from very humble origins. For many years I was a single parent and it was precisely the prospect of a stable income and an indefinite contract that attracted me in the first place. We do not sit behind guichets and treat members of the public with contempt and I am not aware of any of my colleagues who do. Beware of sweeping generalisations!
P.S. For anyone interested, the Bourdieu essays are published in a collection entitled (in English translation) Acts of Resistance (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1998).

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