Why strike? And who?

[pachapapa]

[quote user="woolybanana"][quote user="pachapapa"][quote user="woolybanana"]

[/quote]

And the average of your 25 best years of emolument may not be as "best" as one would wish.

[/quote]

Unfortunately, for many it is the last 6 months, a perk which I think the fonctionnaires have retained, though I might be wrong.

[/quote]

What the average of 6 months, confused......month would 1 be about same as month 6.

 

[woolybanana]

Pension based on their wage over the last six months of their employment. As I said, I may be wrong over that one 

[allanb]

[quote user="pachapapa"]It was Tony of Dordognyshire that mentioned  "black holes" not me. But your suggestion that contributions to the UK national pension pot, DO NOT create a vested interest EVER is quite correct.

As to the Net Present Value of a sum of £ 100 per year discounted at 5% for a period of 20 years. Oh Dear! next you'll be threatening me with the IRR of the UK.GOV  NP scheme.[/quote]

ppp: I think you're rambling.  I made no "suggestion" about vested interests - I didn't even mention them.  However, since you raise the subject, I would never have said that; I think it's entirely possible that contributions do create a vested interest, although you'd need to be a lawyer to be sure.

I said nothing about black holes. 

Finally, if you have difficulty understanding the present value of a future obligation, you shouldn't be writing about actuarial matters.  (You did say that the UK scheme has an actuarial surplus, didn't you?  Well, it doesn't, it has an actuarial deficit - rather a large one, since it doesn't even pretend to fund its obligations.)

[Gluestick]

[quote user="cooperlola"]

[quote user="Gluestick"]undertake these reforms in a more balanced, sensible and gradual way.

As always with changes which are in effect Paradigm Shifts (In terms of final outcomes and realities), the usual -sane! - approach is a series of Step Changes: not a Quantum Leap!

[/quote]Aha!

As a "victim" (like many on here, I suspect) of the raising of the state pensionable age for women, I must concur with you here.  We all knew, having won - at least in theory - equal pay and equal taxation rights with men, that we would have to take the hit on the retirement age which, imo, was only right.  It was made to feel much less onerous because it was a) postponed and b) introduced gradually.  We all knew what was coming and had years to adjust and make provision, if that were necessary.

The problem here, it seems to me, is of expectation.  It's all very well for people (not just on here, I hear it everywhere) to say that "the French" must wake up to the reality of increased life expectancy and an empty public purse.  But to expect people who are about to retire, to suddenly have to slog on for another two years, whilst their grandchildren have no jobs to go to, is surely unreasonable and akin to shoving medication down people's throats against their wills?

A bit more subtlety and a more stealthy, step-by-step approach, as you say, is surely called for here if a solution is to be found?  Plus a convincing plan for increasing employment opportunities, instead of just saying: "work for longer, you lazy g*ts".

[/quote]

As always, JE, the Devil is in the detail.

The workplace already experiences savage examples of ageism: as I always say when writing on this topic "We can't all be greeters at Asda!"

Who would really want to be?

Increasing employment opportunities is the critical key: it is a matter, I believe of matching salient skills and a wealth (Lifetime's?) core knowledge and expertise against tasks. Simply expecting mature people to carry on doing the same mundane jobs as before and more stupidly, expecting them to be able to compete with the young in absorbing and thoroughly understanding new systems and methodologies is crass: to understate the case.

I had an enjoyable lunch, on campus with a Professor of one of the local universities, oh,  20 years or so ago: he had been headhunted (From industry), to ramrod a new department leading on what was then called Continuous Education.

The central ethos was simply the reality that instead of a cradle to grave job for life, the then near future meant most people would change career at least probably three times minimum, in their working life: and in consequence, would need new training and education.

Now that reality is here now: technology has made massive changes to the way people work: and many commercial activities have simply failed to adapt and died.

Yet thus far, government has done nothing meaningful to accept the realities and provision necessary re-training of mature workers.

If government now wish for people to work longer, then they have to consider doing what and where?

Same dynamic for UK, France, USA, Germany, wherever.

[Chancer]

The central ethos was simply the reality that instead of a cradle to grave job for life, the then near future meant most people would change career at least probably three times minimum, in their working life: and in consequence, would need new training and education.

Now that reality is here now: technology has made massive changes to the way people work: and many commercial activities have simply failed to adapt and died.

Yet thus far, government has done nothing meaningful to accept the realities and provision necessary re-training of mature workers.

If government now wish for people to work longer, then they have to consider doing what and where?

Same dynamic for UK, France, USA, Germany, wherever.


Most people I know of my age have already done so the three times, there has been some government help, admittedly not enough but most get up and go people find a way to change their carreer without expecting it all to be done for them. When I first started work I was told it was a job for life and indeed every week someone would retire with 50 years of service to the company, they very thought of ending up like them gave me the willies!

Whereas here in France I know of not one person that has changed their career, I do know of one plucky girl, a night shift forelady for a clothing factory (they make the bras for DIM) who will soon be laid off, she is trying hard to find a formation to be an HGV driver, she has worked as a TIG welder in the past.

I know many others that realise their days are numbered but just cannot get their heads around the idea that they could conceivable do something else, I know that many many trades are controlled but they really believe that you cannot possibly do a any job without having a formation and that it is the governments job to retrain them, perhaps with some justification. 

It is these same people that each time they see me doing a different job be it bricklaying, carrelage, platrerie, electrics, plumbing, carpentry, roofing, cabinet making etc etc seem agog and ask me yet again "so that was you trade before n'est ce pas?". They just cannot get their head around the fact that someone can be capable of doing more than one trade and be self taught.

In fact now that I think of it i do know two people that retrained and now work in I.T. but crucially both of them did unskilled jobs, one a ptrol pump attendant, the other a labourer in a warehouse, and once married they relied on their wifes income to support them while they studied.

The ex-warehouseman is probably the most intelligent, hard working and successfull guy that I know, but even he has just suffered a forced mutation and is currently doing an inventory of all the equipment in his last more local bureau, he is sure that it is soon to be closed (their cleinst are the banks) and he reckons ha may ultimately lose his job, if he does he wants to join me in the building game.

[Frenchie]

I tried to change career  completely a few years back, even though I really like my job .

I wanted to be a nurse when I was younger, so I thought " why not try now? "

It was just impossible. I would have had to study for three years without almost any income ....

With a teenager at home, I had to forget about it .

That is what happens most of the time.

First, it is made very difficult, and second, you have less chances to be hired in your mid life years..

 

[cooperlola]

Many of us can cite examples of people who successfully changed careers late in life.  After I got privatised by Mrs T for the third time, I - for example - subsequently had jobs filling supermarket shelves, cleaning people's houses and looking after other people's animals (for which I had been qualified after leaving school).  By the time I was 50 I was fed up as I was so bored with manual work.  Happily, I had a reasonable final salary pension from the 20 years I'd spent as a pen-pushing cheminot and my o/h did also so we dumped our massive mortgage, moved over here and gave up work.

I had a friend who had run a stationery supply business.  I met him because his business had gone bust and he was doing odd jobs for the same person whose horses I looked after.  His wife was undergoing treatment for breast cancer and so was on basic wage with no possibility of the overtime she had previously been able to do.  Another was a graphic designer who was made redundant because he designed with a pen and paper and couldn't get his head around the computerised systems which his employer was introducing.  He got a job as a cab driver, now has his own cab and earns so little money since the recession that he is having to live mostly on his wife's income (which happily is reasonable) and they have no mortgage as they are now in their late 50s and haven't moved. 

A French friend of mine who is a radiographer is retraining to join her husband's company.  He is a plumber/electrician and she is doing interior design and learning other practical skills so that they can run a company doing loft conversions and home improvements.  But for that she is having to work full time (mostly nights and weekends) as well as attending college and studying.  Is this really practical for people in their late 40s?  Do we really expect them all to have the energy and drive to be able to cope with this?  Some can, some have two incomes to help them cope while they re- train or if they have to take a menial job, some are inteligent and can absorb new skills, some have drive and ambition and some live to work and wouldn't want to put their feet up at any age.

However, I reckon it is just plain foolish to imagine that this applies to everybody and, as said before and as Gluey mentions, where are all these extra jobs anyway?  In a shrinking economy, people spend less (especially when governments are putting plans in place to reduce their own spending and thus cutting the numbers of public sector jobs) and thus require fewer things to be manufactured.  Every time you buy a cheaper product, or cut down your spending on any aspect of your daily life then somebody, somewhere, earns less money as a result.  Every time you buy a product from another country instead of one made here, somebody in this country earns less.  Every time anybody takes a pay cut, less money is spent and somebody somewhere earns less as a result.

I still think that so many of our problems are caused by politicians with "quick fix" ideas made up on the back of the proverbial fag packet, to win votes instead of to solve the real problems which exist globally.  Every "solution" has a knock-on effect somewhere else and unless the politicians of every country and of every hue, actually join up their writing a bit more, then this will just carry on happening.  I've seen it in business where the finance guy just weighs up the arguments put forward by each department and decides upon budgets based upon the strength of each (often judged solely upon the skills of the arguer rather than the merits of his or her argument), as opposed to considering how one department's actions will impact on another's and looking at the business as a whole rather than a lot of separate entities. 

[pachapapa]

[quote user="Jon02"][quote user="pachapapa"]

Forgetting the pénibilité exceptions, cheminot etc, the minimum legal age for retirement is increased from 60 to 62; however note that the age "sans décote, taux plein" ie a full pension without reduction for retiring early will be progressively pushed from 65 to 67. The idea in this thread that the age for full pension rights was up till now 60 is erroneous. Yes up till "now" retirement at 60 with a reduced pension was possible.

Come in frenchie![:)]

[/quote]

But my original question was exactly about the exceptions! I also wonder what the total number of workers in the exception regimes is. In the brave new post reform world what is (if it exists) the taper process for someone who works at the Paris Opera and, until this whole can of worms got opened up, expected to retire (on some healthy final salary percentage) at the ripe old age of 50. Have they seen their retirement horizon move to 50 plus two years? To 62? to 67?
[/quote]

In respect of your original question apparently not answered to your satisfaction. I think you will be disappointed for a while longer.

I dont know whether the Loi Fillon will pass away on the 31st Dec 2010 or whether it will be "reconduite" or indeed whether it will be "reconduited" with changes.

I dont know the date of the promulgation of the pending Retirement Legislation nor indeed the final redaction.

I dont know anything about the anticipated content of the Decrees of Application for the pending legislation.

I dont know a dicky bird as to the expected content of the Circulaire which will replace the Circulaire of 2008; so probable official interpretation of the pending legislation remains a mystery.

I dont know with regard to the particular régime spécial which is "bugging" you whether it administratively falls under la CRAM or la caisse.

I dont know how the special pension regime for football referees will pan out but I do feel anxious and stressed out for them. 

[Gluestick]

[quote user="cooperlola"]

Many of us can cite examples of people who successfully changed careers late in life.  After I got privatised by Mrs T for the third time, I - for example - subsequently had jobs filling supermarket shelves, cleaning people's houses and looking after other people's animals (for which I had been qualified after leaving school).  By the time I was 50 I was fed up as I was so bored with manual work.  Happily, I had a reasonable final salary pension from the 20 years I'd spent as a pen-pushing cheminot and my o/h did also so we dumped our massive mortgage, moved over here and gave up work.[/quote]

I fear the number of people able to emulate your action is decreasing rather rapidly, JE!

Pressures on cost of living, increased taxes, lower pensions, zero interest and ever decreasing returns on investments means those days are over.

Was out at a dinner on Saturday with a very close friend: his private pension (Which he yet to draw as he is only 63 or so), was estimated, regularly at £28K per annum. Now it might be £15K. His wife (Co-director) should have expected £18K: now with luck, perhaps £8K.

Retraining is fine: all provided one can eat whilst so doing.

[pachapapa]

@jon02

This morning 09/11/10 the Law concerning french retirement reform was published in the Journel Officiel de la République Française.

LOIS

1

LOI n° 2010-1330 du 9 novembre 2010 portant réforme des retraites

It contains 34 pages and probably easier for you to download the pdf file for your desktop. For detailed perusal.[:)]