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• Job Cut Reports
  • Comment 2/05/11: Colleague who is a manager told me yesterday that GDP payout ranges this year are down noticeably compared to last year. Not quite sure how IBM can have a record year, grow revenue and profit, surpass the 2010 EPS target, and then pay noticeably less in GDP versus last year. Sounds like our stock grant (at least for U.S. employees) is not "additional compensation" for a job well done but a shift from one bucket (current year bonus) to another bucket (stock in 5 years IF you perform well and remain with the company.) -Anon-
  • Comment 2/07/11: To -Anon- That's exactly what it is. They moved money from one bucket to another and in doing so saved the company millions of dollars. IBM doesn't give anyone something 'extra'. They only 'take away'. -Miss Understanding-
  • Comment 2/05/11: http://clomedia.com/articles/view/4080 IBM partnered with Northeastern University to reduce high-potential attrition in emerging markets. Solving the problem of unacceptably high turnover among high-potential managers in emerging markets is a challenge for many companies. IBM Global Business Process Delivery partnered with Northeastern University College of Business Administration to address this challenge head-on. The solution, an online MBA program tailored for IBM, was launched in India in 2008. The program was so successful that IBM introduced it in China in 2010. The development of this program began in 2006, when Peter Lynt, IBM general manager of global business process delivery, shared that IBM was experiencing an unacceptably high turnover rate in its India operation. As a result, the company was suffering from decreased productivity and employee loyalty in its Mumbai, Bangalore and New Delhi process delivery centers. -Anonymous-
  • Comment 2/08/11: I see people make comments on working over a 40 hour week and it just surprises me. Who makes you do that? I participated in the Overtime lawsuit, but I moved into a different position right before the axe fell to chop 15% off of the tech jobs' wages. It was luck that it happened that way because my wages did not get chopped. But one thing I did notice is that my managers stopped saying it was mandatory to work 15% overtime. So, I just stopped working the overtime. I work a straight forty and if the work does not get done, it is not my responsibility because I am NOT a manager. I may be a target but I will go out with dignity and feel good about the work I do. Work-Life-balance is up to the individual, why do people not know this? Sixty to 80 hour weeks, HAHA. Join a Union or at least grow a pair and take a stand. -the-straight-forty-guy-
  • Comment 2/08/11: Well its looking like the GDP payouts this year will be stated as same levels as 2010 however if you stayed same or got a higher PBC expect a lower payout than last year. The new motto of IBM at 100 years More Work Less Money for You more Money for the Execs -GDP-
  • Comment 2/08/11: Indeed your GDP will $uck for 2010 record results. If you get RAed before the payout make sure you get what little GDP you might be entitled to. IBM made more folks PBC 3 and PBC 2 this year and thus less GDP bucket and payouts will be left even for PBC 1 and 2+. I'd guess PBC 1 get 5%, PBC 2+ 3% and PBC 2 about 1%. And yes, your $1000 stock prize was part of your deferred GDP so to speak. IBM plays three card monty with your additional compensation. They always win and without a union you'll always lose. -da-facts-
  • Comment 2/08/11: A Jeopardy question that will stump Watson: Companies for 1000$. What company continues to screw its employees in any way possible. Less pay, more work, less GDP etc. Come on folks wake up and lets unionize!!! -watson was here-
  • Comment 2/09/11: I know this has nothing to do with a job cut or a resource action but in regards to: http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/02/04/white-house-launches-new-aba-hotline-labor-dept/ I still think there is a deeper reason IBM did the salary to hourly change and that 15% remix (ahem, pay cut) to tech workers. It was not done solely to screw the employee and save IBM money. It was also done to do damage control due to IBM's manipulation of labor accounting in relation to customer contract servicing. Since IBM is basing it's utilization numbers for contract servicing with OT "built in" and billing the customer for OT that is not actual then isn't IBM in violation of something? Is it accounting law, labor wage law being violated?

    Can it be proven IBM moves utilization numbers (billable hours) around from business units (divisions or LOBs) and from one QTR to the next to make quarterly numbers look better?The USA government should know about this. If enough of us stand together and say IBM is reporting OT as billable that is not actually being worked by us week-to-week, quarter-to-quarter, there has to be a case I'm sure can catch the ear of the US government. Also, the Alliance here is your real voice in dealing with IBM. Listen to them. Support them. We need this union to quell IBM abuses that hurt us employees (and retirees), our customers, and our economy. -anonymous-

  • Comment 2/09/11: To -the-straight-forty-guy- : The "work/life" thing was always a joke just like pbc's. There was no work life balance. I don't miss the days of being up in the middle of the night at home working on some system because that's the only time they would let me do changes, and then be expected to be in the office in the morning after being up all night. The work/life balance was just another farce to cover them. At least I got money from that overtime lawsuit to cover "some" of my OT over the years. If you want real work/life balance, organize and unionize. It is the only way with a company like IBM. -Gone_in_07-
  • Comment 2/09/11: My manager told me I better start recording overtime on my time reporting. He needs this to show that his people are working well beyond 100%. I told him this is bull crap since I get my work done and I only get paid for 40 hrs per week. He said if I don't play the game he will be forced to lower my appraisal. Is this ethical? Could I end up on the RA list if I don't play the game? -confused employee-
  • Comment 2/10/11: -Confused employee-. If your manager told you to clock your time and you refuse he can just plain old fire you. Saves IBM the severance pay. It is only an ethical problem if you are to asked to clock hours you did not work. -still here-
  • Comment 2/10/11: -confused employee- "He said if I don't play the game he will be forced to lower my appraisal". Same here. I am in SWG development and was told some months ago to start "playing the game" or wind up with a "3". Well, I wound up with a "3". Apparently this "play the game" thing is a big thing for managers. Must be the new management buzz phrase. Problem is, no one ever told me what game we were playing!!! -NotPlayingTheirGame- Alliance Reply: The "game" is anything but a game; however it is simply "Do what we tell you, don't THINK for yourself and don't expect us to care about you." As stated in this section many times: You are an 'At Will Employee'. You have no written employment contract or binding agreement that is in your favor. Please tell your co-workers to WAKE UP!
  • Comment 2/09/11: China is seeing a growing amount of illegal, independent labor action now. This site features news about labor actions there, as well as great interactive maps: http://chinastrikes.crowdmap.com/ I thought you might find this of interest. -David- Alliance Reply: Thank you for this information. For those who don't know, China has its own 'state' labor unions; but they are mostly powerless, and under Chinese Communist Party control. This is why it is considered "illegal" for independent actions by labor in China. It would be interesting to know if, and how these actions affect IBM locations in China.
  • Comment 2/10/11: Have heard from manager, that some announcement coming Feb16. He had to sign non-disclosure so couldn't say anything more. Likely will affect headcount in some manner. Anyone else heard anything? -Anon-
  • Comment 2/10/11: >> He said if I don't play the game he will be forced to lower my appraisal. Is this ethical? I am continually amazed that people come here, year after year, with anecdotes of how IBM is treating them shabbily, and asking "Is this legal?" or "Is this ethical?" You have no contract. They can do whatever they like to to you, modulo the restrictions of criminal law. "Ethical"?? How long have you been working for this company, and you ask that? You still expect them to treat you well?? Join a union to try to make it a better employer, or find a better employer elsewhere. It's a pretty simple choice. There's no third alternative you'll like better. -irRational-
  • Comment 2/10/11: Sounds like or better put is, all Operations roles in North America are being reorganized and into 3 groups (lots of VPs & Directors to run these 3 groups). With plans to move any repetitive reporting type of work to offshore locations in either China, Brazil or a yet unnamed location (Cairo). Executives will be told too bad if you need data contact the COEs, the COE will tell them sorry only canned information is available. And once the COEs are trained you know what will happen to the existing staff with a few stragglers left behind to enjoy their new roles. Starts in 2Q to be fully implemented by 2012. -Former Ops Person-
  • Comment 2/11/11: Whenever I was asked by a manager or other 'superior' to fill out a form, record or omit hours worked, or any such action that was essentially entering information that was untrue, my response was simply to ask "Are you asking me to falsify company records?" That always stopped them from pushing the issue. Will it help? Probably not, but we all know that the executives and management hold all the power. -He Who Carries the Pickle-

News and Opinion Concerning Health Savings Accounts, Medical Costs and Health Care Reform

• National Public Radio: Republicans Spurn Once-Favored Health Mandate. By Julie Rovner. Excerpts: For Republicans, the idea of requiring every American to have health insurance is one of the most abhorrent provisions of the Democrats' health overhaul bills. "Congress has never crossed the line between regulating what people choose to do and ordering them to do it," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). "The difference between regulating and requiring is liberty."

  But Hatch's opposition is ironic, or some would say, politically motivated. The last time Congress debated a health overhaul, when Bill Clinton was president, Hatch and several other senators who now oppose the so-called individual mandate actually supported a bill that would have required it. In fact, says Len Nichols of the New America Foundation, the individual mandate was originally a Republican idea. "It was invented by Mark Pauly to give to George Bush Sr. back in the day, as a competition to the employer mandate focus of the Democrats at the time."

• Yahoo! IBM Employee Issues message board: "Re: Obama Care" by Paul Sutera. Full excerpt: Well, facts are difficult things. We sure don't get a lot of healthcare for our money in the USA - in fact the R & D budget for drugs produced by Big Pharma is a tiny part of their overall expenditures, whereas advertising expense dwarfs R&D expenditure. I sure didn't see pharmaceutical ads on Italian TV while in Italy. Or on German TV in Germany. But here it's a non-stop barrage.

  55 countries have some form of universal health care. Canada's system is a patchwork of province-specific plans, different in most every province. The USA is FIFTIETH on the list of longevity, right next to Albania, the poorest country in Europe. That means 50 countries in the world have higher longevity rates. Most of these higher longevity rates are in the countries *with* that universal healthcare. But of course the USA has some issues with lifestyle.

  I heard that Peru was instituting medical coverage for its poorest citizens ... from a Peruvian friend.

  So is Obama Care the signature work of a "socialist liberal"? Most would consider it a huge gift to the private sector. And IMHO, the private sector is the reason why Medical Care is so expensive in this country - profit-mongering run amuck. Please don't tell me we're paying for R&D because we should as the wealthiest country.

  Socialist? Well Germany, Italy, France, Canada - all with universal healthcare and ALL (even Italy) with lower unemployment than the USA. Germany at 7.2%, Canada at 7.4%. Italy at 8.4%.

  Now hiring may be slower in those countries but unions and country laws make mandatory severance packages nice and punitive for corporations. As a result they don't destroy quite so many dreams just to make ever increasing profits. On the other hand they are slower to hire a permanent employee too, so there is a downside, and maybe there is a middle-ground too.

  To those who think more corporate-conservatism is the only answer, I don't know what to tell you. I'm thanking LBJ, FDR and Thomas J Watson for taking care of my parents - otherwise they would be living in my spare bedroom with no medical coverage. When I keep hearing we can't afford our safety net - I say only that democracy needs to apply to corporations as well. Ever-increasing profits mean only one thing. More for the corporate-landed gentry, less for the other 398 million people in the USA. We can't afford our safety net because US firms can outsource not only with impunity but with tax-breaks that favor outsourcing and offshoring. Another hard-right political turn ain't gonna fix it. 36% of all manufacturing jobs went overseas or belly-up during Bush/Cheney. Yah I'm sure ready for more Corporate rule of government!

  Obama socialist? My foot!

• Politico: House GOP looks at tough health insurance realities. By Marin Cogan. Excerpts: Ask any House Republican about repealing President Barack Obama's health care law, and you'll get the same fiery, self-assured talking points about tearing down what Speaker John Boehner has called a "monstrosity."

  But talk to some of the 16 freshman lawmakers who have declined their government health benefits, and you'll hear a different side of the story — about tough out-of-pocket expenses, pre-existing conditions and support for health reforms that would help those who struggle with their coverage. As they venture into the free market for health insurance, these lawmakers — many of whom swept into office fueled by tea party anger over the health care law — are facing monthly premiums of $1,200 and fears of double-digit rate hikes.

  The experience has caused some of them to think harder about the "replace" part of the "repeal and replace" mantra the GOP has adopted regarding the health care law.

  "I have a niece who has pre-existing conditions, and I worry about her if she was ever to lose her job," said Florida Rep. Richard Nugent, one of the freshman lawmakers who declined federal health insurance benefits. ...

  "I can simply, honestly say that this is going to impact my wife and I to a fairly serious degree, like it would any average American out there," said first-time Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois. Walsh's wife has a pre-existing condition and will need a procedure in the coming months, but because he declined federal benefits, they're paying for it out of pocket. Meanwhile, Walsh is contributing to a health savings account to cover his expenses. "It's a cost we will feel, a cost I will have to pick up. I won't turn down benefits because I have something to fall back on or because I'm independently wealthy," he said.

News and Opinion Concerning the "War on the Middle Class"

"But dependency on government has never been bad for the rich. The pretense of the laissez-faire people is that only the poor are dependent on government, while the rich take care of themselves. This argument manages to ignore all of modern history, which shows a consistent record of laissez-faire for the poor, but enormous government intervention for the rich." From Economic Justice: The American Class System, from the book Declarations of Independence by Howard Zinn.

• New York Times editorial: Bankers and Their Bonuses. Excerpts: Bankers are done with contrition. Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs, paid himself a $12.6 million stock bonus for 2010, 40 percent more than in 2009, despite plummeting profits. Brian Moynihan of Bank of America got $9 million in restricted stock despite the bank's $2.2 billion loss.

  Bankers are done with contrition. Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs, paid himself a $12.6 million stock bonus for 2010, 40 percent more than in 2009, despite plummeting profits. Brian Moynihan of Bank of America got $9 million in restricted stock despite the bank's $2.2 billion loss. ...

  Bankers and their banks need to be made more risk averse. That means banks must be made smaller and less profitable. Bankers' eagerness to recapture the lavish paydays suggests how far we still need to go.

• Wall Street Journal: No Rush to Hire Even as Profits Soar. By John Shipman, Joe Light and Paul Vigna. Excerpt: The lack of significant job gains 18 months after the recession was declared over isn't such a mystery when considering how companies were able to return to strong profit growth in a relatively short period. They mainly relied on aggressive job cuts, and with companies now pleased with their revitalized earnings and demand still choppy, they seem to be in no hurry to add to their payrolls.
• Washington Post: Business Doesn't Need American Workers. By Robert Kuttner. Excerpts: The U.S. still has a jobs gap of about 14 million jobs, and that number is increasing as the labor force grows. Counting people who've given up, or who are working part time when they want full time jobs, the real unemployment number is around 17 percent. America now has about 25 million people either out of work or underemployed.

  Meanwhile, corporate profits continue to set records. Profits in the third quarter of 2010 were 1.659 trillion, about 28 percent higher than a year before, and the highest year-to-year increase on record.

  What's going on? Very simply, America's corporations no longer need America's workers.

  As Harold Meyerson documents in a brilliant piece for The American Prospect, our most admired corporations -- GE, Apple, Hewlett Packard, Intel -- are creating ever more jobs overseas and relatively fewer at home. This has the double benefit of taking advantage of cheap labor abroad and disciplining workers to accept low wages at home. Along with the high unemployment rates have come declining earnings. ...

  This record contrasts dramatically with that of the right's favorite whipping boy -- Western Europe. Germany is gaining jobs at a rapid clip. Its industrialists are committed to producing at home, and just in case they get ideas of making outsourcing a way of life, they have strong unions who negotiate agreements on where production is located. Germany's labor costs are the highest in the world, but Germany nonetheless runs the world's largest export surplus -- 7 percent of GDP -- while America runs chronic trade deficits. ...

  The Obama administration is not about to take issue with American companies that profit from locating ever more production abroad. The corporate elite is fiercely opposed to any limits on its freedom to relocate, and Obama is on a mission to make peace with big business. The administration continues to promote "free trade" deals on the premise that they will create jobs -- but more and more of those jobs get created offshore.

  Both political parties are in denial about the plain fact that American industry is competing against an industrial system in China radically different from our own. If a company like GE wants to operate in China, the Beijing regime extracts conditions that violate the spirit if not the letter of the World Trade Organization. Companies are made to take on Chinese partners, to transfer sensitive proprietary technology, and to shift their production and R&D to China. In exchange, they get government subsidies and docile workers. Eventually, much of their production is displaced by their Chinese partners, but in the meantime they make a lot of money. ...

  So if you want to know why the Democratic Party did so badly in the 2010 midterms, it's because the administration lacked a plausible story about how to alter these basic dynamics. And it lacked that story because it was unwilling to challenge the corporate business model that disdains American workers. In light of that reality, the latest gestures by the president to show the business elite just what a good fellow he is are not just disappointing, but they are foolish politics.

• Los Angeles Times: Koch brothers now at heart of GOP power. By Tom Hamburger, Kathleen Hennessey and Neela Banerjee. Excerpts: Koch Industries is the country's second-largest privately run company, a conglomerate of refining, pipeline, chemical and paper businesses. Their products include Lycra and Coolmax fibers, Brawny paper towels and Stainmaster carpets. Last year, Forbes magazine listed the brothers as the nation's fifth-richest people, each worth $21.5 billion. ...

  When the 85 freshman GOP lawmakers marched into the Capitol on Jan. 5 as part of the new Republican House majority, David Koch was there too. The 70-year-old had an appointment with a staff member of the new speaker, Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). At the same time, the head of Americans for Prosperity, Tim Phillips, had an appointment with Upton. They used the opportunity to introduce themselves to some of the new legislators and invited them to a welcome party at the Capitol Hill Club, a favorite wine-and-cheese venue for Republican power players in Washington.

• The Nation: The Conservative Class War, Continued. By Eric Alterman. Excerpts: It was a terrible tabloid tale. While New York City was buried under a blizzard, widows and orphans freezing and starving in their apartments, union fat cats swigged brewskis and chuckled to themselves as sanitation workers conspired to stage a slowdown to gain leverage in their contract negotiations. "The selfish Sanitation bosses who sabotaged the blizzard cleanup to fire a salvo at City Hall targeted politically connected and well-heeled neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn to get their twisted message across loud and clear," screamed Rupert Murdoch's New York Post. From there, the story ricocheted across the media, to Investor's Business Daily to Fox News (naturally), and even to Saturday Night Live. The Washington Times ran an op-ed that began, "Cross us and people will die."

  Alas, it never happened. The source of all this hysteria was a sketchy story told by Daniel Halloran, a rookie councilman and Tea Party Republican—who is also an adherent of the neo-pagan religion Theodicism. A New York Times investigation weeks later found no evidence to support the allegation, and it turns out that Halloran isn't so sure about what he thought he heard after all. But the damage is done. (Murdoch properties are not exactly famous for correcting their errors; though, to be fair, if they did, there would hardly be time or space for anything else.)

  Can it be mere coincidence that the right-wing media promoted this phony-baloney story at a moment when, as Charles Loveless, legislative director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, points out, conservatives are "readying a massive assault" on the pensions and benefits of these same employees? ...

  The assault on public employee unions is the next phase of a forty-year class war in America by the rich against the rest of us. It is of a piece with the steady dismantling of our progressive taxation system and the explosion of economic inequality. Total income going to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans has risen from about 8 percent in the 1960s to more than 20 percent today. As Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson demonstrate in their recent book, Winner-Take-All Politics, this is the result of deliberate policy choices made by politicians in the service of those who fund their campaigns. Congress has repeatedly cut tax rates on top earners, along with capital gains and estate taxes. And as Robert Lieberman, writing in Foreign Affairs, recalls, during the 1990s the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which regulates accounting practices, attempted to put a stop to the practice of allowing corporate CEOs to compensate themselves with massive stock-option packages, correctly predicting that it would lead to an epidemic of deceptive accounting practices. "But Congress, spurred on by the lobbying efforts of major corporations, stopped the FASB in its tracks." The result? For the past twenty years we've allowed CEOs to enrich themselves at the expense of employees and stockholders "through the mutual back-scratching habits of corporate boards."

• National Public Radio: As You Get Ready To File, Know That Taxes Are At A 60-Year Low. By Eyder Paralta. Excerpts: That's according to the AP, which also reports that across the board, 2010's taxes will be significantly lower than they were during the Bush years. They report:

  Income tax payments this year will be nearly 13 percent lower than they were in 2008, the last full year of the Bush presidency. Corporate taxes will be lower by a third, according to projections by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

  The poor economy is largely to blame, with corporate profits down and unemployment up. But so is a tax code that grows each year with new deductions, credits and exemptions. The result is that families making as much as $50,000 can avoid paying federal income taxes, if they have at least two dependent children. Low-income families can actually make a profit from the income tax, and the wealthy can significantly cut their payments.

  "The current state of the tax code is simply indefensible," says Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. "It is hemorrhaging revenue."

  Robert Schlesinger, opinion editor at U.S. News and World Report, breaks down the numbers: "...Federal tax receipts this year are expected to be about 14.8 percent of GDP. By contrast that figure was 17.5 percent in tax cut warrior George W. Bush's last full year in office."

• New York Times op-ed: A Terrible Divide. By Bob Herbert. Excerpts: More and more Americans are being left behind in an economy that is being divided ever more starkly between the haves and the have-nots. Not only are millions of people jobless and millions more underemployed, but more and more of the so-called fringe benefits and public services that help make life livable, or even bearable, in a modern society are being put to the torch.

  Employer-based pensions, paid vacations, health benefits and the like are going the way of phone booths and VCRs. As poverty increases and reliable employment becomes less and less the norm, the dwindling number of workers with any sort of job security or guaranteed pensions (think teachers and other modestly compensated public employees) are being viewed with increasing contempt. How dare they enjoy a modicum of economic comfort? ...

  Standards of living for the people on the wrong side of the economic divide are being ratcheted lower and will remain that way for many years to come. Forget the fairy tales being spun by politicians in both parties — that somehow they can impose service cuts that are drastic enough to bring federal and local budgets into balance while at the same time developing economic growth strong enough to support a robust middle class. It would take a Bernie Madoff to do that. ...

  For a variety of reasons, there are not enough tax revenues being generated to pay for the basic public services that one would expect in an advanced country like the United States. The rich are not shouldering their fair share of the tax burden. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue to consume an insane amount of revenue. And there are not enough jobs available at decent enough pay to ease some of the demand for public services while at the same time increasing the amount of taxes paid by ordinary workers. ...

  The U.S. cannot cut its way out of this crisis. Instead of trying to figure out how to keep 4-year-olds out of pre-kindergarten classes, or how to withhold life-saving treatments from Medicaid recipients, or how to cheat the elderly out of their Social Security, the nation's leaders should be trying seriously to figure out what to do about the future of the American work force. ...

  Corporate profits and the stock markets are way up. Businesses are sitting atop mountains of cash. Put people back to work? Forget about it. Has anyone bothered to notice that much of those profits are the result of aggressive payroll-cutting — companies making do with fewer, less well-paid and harder-working employees?

  For American corporations, the action is increasingly elsewhere. Their interests are not the same as those of workers, or the country as a whole. As Harold Meyerson put it in The American Prospect: "Our corporations don't need us anymore. Half their revenues come from abroad. Their products, increasingly, come from abroad as well." American workers are in a world of hurt. Anyone who thinks that politicians can improve this sorry state of affairs by hacking away at Social Security, Medicare and the public schools are great candidates for involuntary commitment.

• thruthOut: Worker Productivity: The French Connection. By Paul Krugman. Excerpts: Workers in the United States are more productive, per capita, than workers in European nations, according to 2009 federal government statistics. But does this mean that Europeans are doing something wrong, or do they simply have different priorities than Americans? ...

  I'm going to focus on the data from 2008, not 2009. In 2009, businesses in the United States laid off a lot of workers, while European firms did not. That produced a divergence in productivity that had more to do with short-run business cycle events than with fundamental trends. Data from 2008 allows for a better sense of the underlying differences:

  • G.D.P. per capita: Per person, France produces 73 percent of what the United States produces in a year.
  • G.D.P. per hour worked: A French worker produces about 99 percent of what an American worker produces in one hour.
  • Number of workers: For every 100 workers in the United States, France has about 84 workers.
  • Hours per worker: For every 100 hours an American works, a French person works about 88.

  So French workers are roughly as productive as American workers. But fewer French people have jobs, and when they have jobs, they work fewer hours. So why is it that fewer people in France are employed? During their prime working years, the French are as likely to have jobs as Americans are. ...

  And why do the French work shorter hours? For the most part, probably because government policies mandate that workers take vacation time. The bottom line is that France, which has the same levels of technology and productivity as the United States, has made different choices about retirement and leisure. Vive la difference!