Hmmm.
France's parliament has passed a law which effectively ends the country's compulsory 35-hour working week.
The new law will allow companies to strike individual deals with unions on working hours and overtime.
[...]
Unions say the new measures will mainly affect smaller and medium-sized firms.
"In the big companies, no-one wants to renegotiate the 35 hours and reopen Pandora's Box," said Philippe Jaeger, of managers' union CFE-CGC.
It still seems to be sticking around, or at least unions have to agree to new arrangements. Maybe its an argument for increased unionization in the US?
The French labor market is quite different from the US - as you well know. ;-) I'm not sure what conclusions can be drawn from their experience. One could easily argue that a 5 hour reduction in the work week wasn't enough to substantially reduce unemployment there...
My $0.02, FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.