The BBC reports that the French government is asking state sector workers to report to work on a traditional May holiday — and work for free that day. The “Day of Solidarity” will replace the traditional post-Pentecost Monday holiday this May 16. The move is supposed to raise money for the national health care system in the wake of its failure during the August 2003 heat wave, which killed as many as 15,000 elderly people.

While we certainly support the notion of having government workers be more productive (more output, same cost), this seems an odd approach to this specific problem. Aside from a slow moving health bureaucracy, a key cause of the disaster was that many doctors and health care workers were on vacation for the month of August. Those who remained were overwhelmed by the crisis.

Mandated minimum staffing levels would seem a better way to prevent a recurrence. But that would mean breaching the sanctity of the August holiday. It’s an odd prioritization.

Unions, of course, are threatening to strike.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 1st, 2005 at 9:34 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under France, We Taunt You, Brilliant, but uncategorizable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.