American and French Labour Laws Essay

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Any country highly values its human capital which is the most important input into the day-to-day operations of the economy. It is the responsibility of any government to ensure that each and every employee is satisfied with the conditions of work so that the employee can deliver to the maximum. However, given the capitalistic nature of human beings, employers are likely to take advantage of their employees. As a result, governments have come up with laws that guide the relationship between employees and employers in their places of work. Nevertheless, these laws differ from one country to another. Consequently, while the labor laws of the United States and France can be similar, they have some differences.

To begin with, the government of France has made it compulsory for firms to set aside a stipulated amount of money to be used for employee training and development. As a result, all firms in France conduct training at a given period. However, French firms have no specific training programs and target groups. As a result, only employees who are considered as being high potential are selected and trained. Firms have specific vacancies for this group of people and consider them easy to train (Blanpain, 2010). On the contrary, the US labor laws are not specific in terms of employee training. Therefore, firms are free to choose when to train their employees.

Similarly, employees are protected by the government of France making many of them reluctant of joining labor unions. As a result, France has a minimal percentage of its workforce being members of labor unions. This is because the French labor code demands that companies with more than 50 employees must form three worker councils (Alibekova & Campell, 2007). Moreover, the firms are supposed to introduce profit sharing and submit restructuring plans to the councils whenever they want to dismiss employees for economic reasons. On the contrary, some basic issues on employee protection are not addressed by the US labour laws. This has prompted many employees to join unions (Goldman &Corrada, 2011).

Regarding discrimination issues at work places, both countries have very strict laws in place. Both countries have illegalized discrimination based on gender, age, marital status, family background, political ideologies and religious background among other factors (Morriss & Estreicher, 2010). In both countries, it is a criminal offence if an employer is found discriminating against an employee. However, the US labour laws are vague on the issue of disability. They generally state that an employer cannot discriminate against a person based on his or her disability provided the person has the required qualifications (Dobbin, 2009). On the other hand, the French labour laws are very specific as regards disability. The law requires that a company with more than 20 employees must either have 6% of its staff drawn from the disabled people, or contribute an amount proportion to its staff to the national fund for the disabled.

As for the termination of contracts between employees and employers, the two countries differ. In the United States, employment at will exists. This means that employers, especially those in the private sector, can terminate a contract of an employee without notice or reasons. On the contrary, as it is the case in the whole of Europe, employment at will does not exist in France (Alibekova & Campell, 2007). Therefore, employers cannot terminate a contract with an employee unless they have reasons that are valid as stipulated by law. Moreover, a minimum of one month notice is usually required.

References

Alibekova, A. &Campell, D. (2007).Employment Law. Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer Law International.

Blanpain, R. L. (2010). European Labor Law.Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer Law International.

Dobbin, F. (2009). Inventing Equal Opportunity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Goldman, A. L. &Corrada, R. L. (2011). Labour Law in the USA. Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer Law International.

Morriss, A. P. &Estreicher, S. (2010). Global Labor and Employment Law for the Practicing Lawyer: Proceedings of the New York University 61st Annual Conference on Labor. Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer Law International.

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