Like It Is

There’s a rather sinister move afoot in Europe. In an effort to stem the rapidly falling birth rate by increasing the number of babies born, several European countries have gone on the offensive – in more ways than one. Bribes to have children, sweeteners in terms of money for additional children, generous leave allowances, not to mention tax breaks are all lined up to coax more babies out of women who have either decided they don’t want children or are waverers.

Europe is ratcheting up the ante more aggressively every day. Generous allowances have appeared to work in France and even Spain is coming out with a plan to pay Spanish women 2,5000 euros to breed more and – and breed faster.

But this isn’t really news. We can expect childed and childed to be much better off than their childfree counterparts if this trend continues, as sickening as that is. What is more disturbing is Germany’s increasingly aggressive stance. That stance is not only to bribe women for breeding more, but also, just to be on the safe side, to stigmatise the childfree. Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: childfree, childfree

Imagine how it must feel to be sacked for blogging. Not because you mentioned the company in which you worked, either. Just because the company feels they own your thoughts and activities outside work… because they think that the company “can be identified” through your blogging.

I remember, as I’m sure everyone does, when Petite anglaise was sacked for having a blog and blogging, back in July last year.

She wrote about it on her blog of course, and although I didn’t follow it avidly, I did keep my ears open for the result. And here it is. I’m surprised that it didn’t make the front page of mainstream newspapers, but let’s not dwell on that right now. It was mentioned in the The Times, India Knight’s column, which was good, because she’s pretty widely read. And congratulatory comments on petite anglaise’s blog are well in the 200’s and climbing.

Every blogger should be cheering about this (and if you’d like to do so on your blog, feel free to link to this article).

Congratulations are in order, so hearty congratulations to her. Shame on the employer who sacked her in the first place.

Blogging is here to stay and while I would still say bloggers should use judgment on what they blog about (like if you’ve a beef about work, try and deal with it within work before blogging to the world about it,) employers should really wake up to the fact that their employees have blogs and find ways of living with it. Bloggers aren’t going away. Bloggers meanwhile, get a disclaimer!! It may not keep the world at bay, but it does indicate your intentions right up front.

Meanwhile, Bravo Petite Anglaise!! Hats off to you for hanging in there.

Here is the text from India Knight’s column, in case readers don’t want to read the first half of the article about Martin Sorrell.

“Meanwhile, in Paris, an English girl sacked for bringing her employers into disrepute by writing an anonymous (very good) blog called petite anglaise was awarded £30,000 for wrongful dismissal last week. A tribunal decided that Catherine Sanderson, 34, had been dismissed “without real and serious causes”.

Her former employer Dixon Wilson, the British accountancy firm, had justified her dismissal by claiming that although the blog never mentioned Sanderson’s place of work, it featured photographs of her and therefore associated her with the firm. Its lawyer also claimed that she had wasted time by blogging from work, that an entry about meeting a lover implied she might have bunked off work, and that she had endangered the company’s reputation by writing about her professional life.”

“I find the idea that a company should believe it owns every aspect of your life and thoughts peculiar, to put it mildly, and it is good news that this test case turned out the way it did. “I won,” Sanderson blogged last week. “A year’s salary, plus costs. I will only get this compensation if my ex-employer does not lodge an appeal . . . but right now, the principle is enough for me. Round one to petite anglaise!”

Couldn’t agree more. Let’s hope they won’t add to their silliness by appealing and in future let sleeping blogs lie.

Technorati Tags: sacked for blogging, Blogging, Petite Anglaise

After decades of family friendly policies, particularly policies to promote childbearing and large families, France has overtaken Ireland as the European nation with the highest breeding rate birthrate. The Times Online reports that more babies were born in France in 2006 than in any year since 1981, almost meeting the 2.07 children level per woman said to be required to replenish generations. The European average is 1.52 children per woman. Britain’s is 1.8 children.

Officials have hailed the high birth rate as confirmation that the expensive schemes to encourage couples to produce more children while also remaining in the workforce have succeeded. French women now give birth at an average age of 30 and, interestingly half the children are born outside marriage. The French workforce is almost 50% women and most don’t have to resort to part-time work. So how do they do it? Read the rest of this entry »