[Winder]

Review & Outlook: Employment, Italian Style - WSJ.com

Once you hire employee 11, you must submit an annual self-assessment to the national authorities outlining every possible health and safety hazard to which your employees might be subject. These include stress that is work-related or caused by age, gender and racial differences. You must also note all precautionary and individual measures to prevent risks, procedures to carry them out, the names of employees in charge of safety, as well as the physician whose presence is required for the assessment.


Once you hire your 16th employee, national unions can set up shop. As your company grows, so does the number of required employee representatives, each of whom is entitled to eight hours of paid leave monthly to fulfill union or works-council duties. Management must consult these worker reps on everything from gender equality to the introduction of new technology

Hire No. 16 also means that your next recruit must qualify as disabled. By the time your firm hires its 51st worker, 7% of the payroll must be handicapped in some way,...

Once you hire your 101st employee, you must submit a report every two years on the gender dynamics within the company. This must include a tabulation of the men and women employed in each production unit, their functions and level within the company, details of compensation and benefits, and dates and reasons for recruitments, promotions and transfers, as well as the estimated revenue impact....

http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2012/06/sand-in-gears.html

[kswier]

Yep, that's a bit ridiculous. I am all for employee protections, but this takes it a few steps too far.

[Winder]

The Financial Times just ran a story over the EU suing the UK for buying garlic from China. People in the EURO zone are not allow to chose whom they buy garlic from apparently. The following was posted in response:

Pythagoras' theorem – 24 words.
Lord's Prayer – 66 words.
Archimedes' Principle – 67 words.
10 Commandments – 179 words.
Gettysburg address – 286 words.
US Declaration of Independence – 1,300 words.
US Constitution with all 27 Amendments – 7,818 words.
EU regulations on the sale of cabbage – 26,911 words.

26,911 words are needed to tell people in the EU how and where to buy cabbage.

[RKKS08]

@ Winder

UK does not belong to the EURO zone.

I think you don't know much about the subject.

The EU sets import taxes for various products, just like the US. These must be the same for every EU country, as, after import, the goods can be traded without any import/export restrictions or taxes within the EU.

The UK, over a period of 2 years, declared fresh garlic imports from China as being "frozen", taking less import tax.

The EU now wanted compensation from the UK (the amount of taxes illegally not taken), because this cheaper garlic most likely has done damage to the sales of EU produced garlic.

The sum of GP 15m should have been paid back in 2008, but this still has not happened. Now the EU is suing the UK because of this money.

---

Last edited by RKKS08; 06-26-2012 at 04:59 PM.

[Winder]

@ Winder

UK does not belong to the EURO zone.

I think you don't know much about the subject.

The EU sets import taxes for various products, just like the US. These must be the same for every EU country, as, after import, the goods can be traded without any import/export restrictions or taxes within the EU.

The UK, over a period of 2 years, declared fresh garlic imports from China as being "frozen", taking less import tax.

The EU now wanted compensation from the UK (the amount of taxes illegally not taken), because this cheaper garlic most likely has done damage to the sales of EU produced garlic.

The sum of GP 15m should have been paid back in 2008, but this still has not happened. Now the EU is suing the UK because of this money.

Yes, I keep forgetting they are in the EU, but not in the "zone". Thank you for clarifying the issue.

In order to protect the garlic farmers all the citizens of the EU have to pay an import tax. Make the citizens of the EU poorer to make the garlic industry richer. Garlic farmers must have a strong political lobby.

We also have leaders who actually believe that protectionist import taxes actually help the economy. We passed a import tax on Chinese tires to "protect American jobs".....
"The tariffs did ultimately lead to a 30% reduction in Made in China tire imports from 2009 to 2011, but that didn’t mean 30% more tires were produced in the U.S. It just meant that 30% more tires were imported from Canada; 110% more from South Korea; 44% more from Japan; 152% more from Indonesia; 154% more from Thailand; 117% more from Mexico and 285% more from low volume provider Taiwan, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission."
The program was projected to save 10,000 American jobs, but ended up costing the American consumer $1.4 billion or $140,000 per job.... Assuming any American jobs were actually saved.


Can you clarify why the EU regulations on the sale of cabbage – 26,911 words? That has got to be some of the most amazing cabbage in the world. Is there something special about the cabbage industry?

[RKKS08]

I have not found (yet) the document this Yahoo! answer (from the EU haters in UK!) is referring too, and they don't give the source.

26911 words seems a lot. But you have to keep in mind that

1) There is probably no subject more different between countries than laws and restrictions about food. With such differences, a common market of 25 countries with open borders for people and goods would be impossible. There must be master rules binding for all member states. To compromise about these is the most difficult thing establishing a free market. Every country (the governments AND the people) think their own rules are the best. Any compromise must also take care for some of the regional historical/cultural based preferences.

2) The rules must cover growing, use of pesticides (with possible regional exceptions because of different climates), transport. The rules may be different for growing and selling, making it possible to have different rules for export. There also must be rules for import, and in some cases import taxes.

3) The documents are always multilingual (presently 23 languages, the differences are not too big between France/Western Belgium, Netherlands/Eastern Belgium, Tchech Republic/Slovakia, Germany/SouthEast Belgium/Austria, Greece/Cyprus, UK/Malta).

About import taxes:

Sometimes they are needed, sometimes they may cause harm. And sometimes they are just a kind of revenge or means to put pressure to some other country - specially the US are famous for the latter. Anyway they should be used intelligently. Some EU countries (UK, Germany) would prefer to have them lower and fading over time. But the big agricultural countries (mainly France and Poland) could probably not survive without them. I would think any specific rules about cabbage could be initiated by newer East European countries, where cabbage is very important (Poland, the Baltic countries), rather than by Western European countries.

Germany, as an Export country, was never keen to have high import taxes - they are hurting us more than they help. For example, Germany is one of the very few countries which export MUCH more to China than we import from there (and there is also a wide range of partly German owned factories in China, who also do export to the rest of the world). However, as China ist still making this a one-way-street, we just can't skip these taxes completely. You also must keep in mind that, even with all duties skipped, China has a tight control over its banks and companies. Even without taxes, they could influence import/export in a way impossible for western countries.

[Winder]

About import taxes:

Sometimes they are needed, sometimes they may cause harm. And sometimes they are just a kind of revenge or means to put pressure to some other country - specially the US are famous for the latter. Anyway they should be used intelligently. Some EU countries (UK, Germany) would prefer to have them lower and fading over time. But the big agricultural countries (mainly France and Poland) could probably not survive without them. I would think any specific rules about cabbage could be initiated by newer East European countries, where cabbage is very important (Poland, the Baltic countries), rather than by Western European countries.

Germany, as an Export country, was never keen to have high import taxes - they are hurting us more than they help. For example, Germany is one of the very few countries which export MUCH more to China than we import from there (and there is also a wide range of partly German owned factories in China, who also do export to the rest of the world). However, as China ist still making this a one-way-street, we just can't skip these taxes completely. You also must keep in mind that, even with all duties skipped, China has a tight control over its banks and companies. Even without taxes, they could influence import/export in a way impossible for western countries.

What is a good example of an import tax where the population at large benefited, and it was not simply a way to protect the profits of a company or industry? The consumers are always the ones who end up paying the tax, so how are they benefited?