Novus A. is writing from, I believe, east Germany, which is only nominally part of Western Europe.
--- On Mon, 5/18/09, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
> From: shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Interview with Left Party Leader Oskar Lafontaine
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Monday, May 18, 2009, 7:03 PM
> At 05:09 PM 5/18/2009, SA wrote:
> > shag carpet bomb wrote:
> >
> >> interesting, especially in light of discussion
> around german politics by angelus novus. (got this from the
> platypus society list, which I joined out of curiosity when
> SA posted something about the group).
> >>
> >> i fing two things interesting, in a
> tongue-and-cheek way: that the left party is being accused
> of moving to the left! and that their proposed minimum wage
> is the lousy equivalent of $13.60. given our stereotypes of
> european welfare states: bfd!
> >
> > That's almost twice the new, hiked U.S. Obama-Ted
> Kennedy minimum wage. Bfd?
> >
> > SA
>
>
> that's the proposed, pie-in-the-sky, fat chance they'll be
> able "to enter into a coalition with any other party"
> because the demands are so "left" according to der Spiegel's
> interviewer's comments. The other parties are advocating the
> minimum wages advocated in the u.s. ~10/hr:
>
> As Angelus Novus wrote me off-list:
>
> "I just wanted to note that Germany doesn't even have a
> legally mandated minimum wage, except for branches of
> industry where a sufficient percentage of the branch is
> subsumed to a collective bargaining agreement. The
> idea of actually implementing one is current among various
> currents, the Greens and the DGB (the trade union
> confederation) are both advocating 7,50 an hour, Die Linke
> is advocating 8,00 (if my memory serves me correctly)."
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