[Info-vax] HP stopping VMS paper documentation ?

[Paul Sture]

On Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:39:11 -0600, Bob Koehler wrote:

> In article
> <21814600.1296.1324314895392.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums at prht13>,
> Kenneth Fairfield <ken.fairfield at gmail.com> writes:
>> If you look at the current state of unemployment, you could make a
>> rational=
>>  argument for *lowering* the retirement age, thus opening positions for
>>  the= younger demographic, particularly those just graduating from
>>  college that =
>> currently have a very high unemployment rate (plus the burden of huge
>> stude= nt loans...which are not dismissible in bankruptcy).
> 
>    Unions like to claim that they brought us the weekend.  Once upon a
>    time workers only got Sunday off, mostly because religion based laws
>    were carried over from colonial days.
> 
>    But part of the reason most folks get Saturday off is that it was
>    seen by legislators as a way to cut unemployment.  Laws don't require
>    Saturday off, and most of the religion based Sunday laws have been
>    overturned, but there's a lot of legal pressure to run a 40 hour week
>    and a lot of benefit to a business to using the same 5 days as other
>    businesses.

I remember my father working Saturday mornings, and we had Saturday 
morning school too.  These were the days before extended shopping hours, 
and as I discovered as recently as 1998 when I came to Switzerland, doing 
all your shopping on a Saturday was hell.  Another change is the number 
of women in the workforce.  When I was young, the only married women on 
our road who worked were a couple of teachers and one nurse.  It's 
perhaps significant that the other major employer of women in my area in 
those days was the textile industry, and they only worked Monday to 
Friday too (Fridays featured an early finish).

Fortunately for me and many others, the shopping hours in Switzerland 
have been extended gradually; just the change to closing time at 19:00 
has made a distinct difference, and you can shop on a Saturday without 
the rest of the country being in the shops at the same time.

The Saturday morning school thing meant that my family could never take a 
full weekend off during term time.  That certainly didn't help the 
tourist industry.

>    So you can use a similar argument to claim Fridays off as a cure for
>    unemployment.

According to the occasional comments I have read, that has happened in 
France since they reduced the number of working hours in a week.  Those 
who can will try to fit the required hours into 4 days and have the extra 
day off.

-- 
Paul Sture