Sarkozy Whips the Unions

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been dealing with a transit strike the last few days, but he's held fast and a combination of his will and the anger of French commuters is bringing the strike to a halt:

President Sarkozy of France is on the verge of a breakthrough in his ambitious plan to wean his country off the restrictive working practices he believes stand in the way of national prosperity.

Yesterday, the strike of rail and subway workers that has crippled France for nine days was clearly crumbling, as workers began returning to work in large numbers and union branches conceded that support for the dispute is collapsing.

"We think a dynamic of return to work has begun," Julie Vion, a spokeswoman for France's state-owned railroad network, SNCF, said.

Union leaders began to concede defeat yesterday. "We have to face reality. Since yesterday's negotiations, things have changed. The strike is no longer the solution. The strike strategy is no longer winning," a leader of the Sud union representing Paris underground railway workers, Philippe Touzet, said in an interview with Bloomberg News.

The collapse of support for the strike by individual rail workers marks the first success in what Mr. Sarkozy considers the key goal of his presidency, the abandonment of expensive entitlements and special conditions for public sector workers, including generous early retirement and pension benefits for half a million rail workers, which he believes make France uncompetitive.

This strike also points out the dangers of cities and regions that rely too heavily on public transportation. If those unions go out on strike entire cities can be paralyzed and usually the least fortunate suffer the most because they have no alternative way to get to work or wherever they need to go. Although traffic in L.A. is the pits, if a transit strike occurs here there's very little effect. Most people wouldn't even notice it.