Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture

[n2doc]

by Chantal Panozzo

I was halfway through a job interview when I realized I was wrinkling my nose. I couldn't help myself. A full-time freelance position with a long commute, no benefits, and a quarter of my old pay was the best they could do? I couldn't hide how I felt about that, and the 25-year-old conducting the interview noticed.

"Are you interested in permanent jobs instead?" she asked.

"I could consider a permanent job if it was part-time," I said.

She looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language and went right back to her pitch: long commute, full-time, no benefits. No way, I thought. Who would want to do that? And then it hit me: Either I had become a completely privileged jerk or my own country was not as amazing as I had once thought it to be. This wasn't an unusually bad offer: It was just American Reality.

more

http://www.vox.com/2015/7/21/8974435/switzerland-work-life-balance

[DFW]

1. I remember when we opened our Swiss office in 1984.

Taxes in Geneva are higher than where the woman in the article was living, but they are still low by our standards and ridiculously low by European standards. My man there screamed bloody murder when his tax bracket went up from 15% to 25% due to the higher wage he was getting from us. I told him to stop whining and consider that as a Swiss citizen, he had it better than any other employee in our whole outfit, including me.

[DetlefK]

2. Example: Germany

It's pretty similar:
- Eating lunch at your desk... It just doesn't happen. You take your time for a relaxed meal and to balance that out that you stay longer at work.
- Yes, if take a part-time version of a full-time job, you get a fraction of everything: Half the work-load, half the salary, half the vacation...
- 4 weeks of paid vacation, plus most companies shut down from Christmas to New Years.
- Studies have shown that commute is one of the main causes for stress at a job. Most german cities have comfortable systems of public transit.

[DFW]

5. German commuting would be a LOT easier if they fixed two things

The DB spends very little on maintenance and the S-Bahn trains break down frequently. I can't count HOW many times I've had to take a very expensive taxi or drive to another city to catch a train because we get told over a loudspeaker "Der Zug fällt leider aus." Or, this year, the GDL ("ganz Deutschland lahmgelegt&quot decided to strike repeatedly so that their Saxon leader could get himself on TV a few dozen times. I have been stressed out due to gaps in the commuter system more than I can count this year. As someone who frequently has to get up at 4:30 AM to get to work, I do not appreciate having to get up 45 minutes earlier so I can be at work on time, whichever country it is that day.

The lunch break is bigger in Germany, as in most of Europe. Try to get someone on the phone between 12 and 2 and the answer is usually "er/sie ist zu Tisch (out to lunch)." Unless, that is, they are a government worker (Beamte) in a non-teaching job. Then, the lunch break lasts from 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM. They NEVER answer their phones. I live in Germany, this is my daily reality.

[marmar]

6. "The lunch break is bigger in Germany, as in most of Europe. "

Why is this a bad thing?

[DFW]

12. It's not, if not abused

Of course, I hear that in the States, you're lucky to get a full hour, which is just too much stress unless you work in Manhattan and there are 175 possibilities within 50 feet of where you work.

The government workers (uncivil servants), on the other hand, have their jobs for life, have no incentive whatsoever to be efficient, and disappear for most of the working day if they can get away with it. My wife was a social worker for decades in Nordrhein-Westfalen and had to fight and make time-consuming trips to the various government agencies to help out her "clients," as the government never took care of these people voluntarily or in a timely manner unless a persistent social worker intervened for them.

[Ghost Dog]

18. And... what pensions do these 'disappearing functionaries' receive?

At what ages?

[DFW]

25. Full salary, with a few minor deductions

Age 65 like the rest of Germany, although they're trying to bump that up to 67.

This is one of the reasons these people are the object of so much anger in the rest of the German population.

It also one of the reasons the Germans have little sympathy for the Greeks, with about 1 in 4 employees being government workers (1 in 12 in Germany, already high), and being able to retire at 55.

[Violet_Crumble]

58. The German population are angry because civil servants retire at 65?

I don't know why they'd be angry. That's the retirement age for all Germans when it comes to the government pension, isn't it?

They'd be more than angry if they were here. I'm a civil servant and I can retire at 55. I can't access the government pension till 65 but I won't need it because I'm in a defined benefits scheme and will be retiring on about 75% of my salary, and once I hit 60 there's a shitload of tax concessions I get.

[DFW]

62. You misread my post

The Germans are not angry because their civil servants retire at 65. They are angry because another country is demanding that these same people who retire at 65 are having their taxes go, without their consent, to subsidize another country's policy of letting its civil servants retire at 55 when that country runs out of money due to its own policy, forced upon them by no one.

[MattSh]

70. Yeah, but...

Greeks, those who are working, work on average 39 hours a week.
Working Germans average 26 hours a week.

So maybe, just maybe, the Greeks have actually earned an early retirement?

[Violet_Crumble]

72. Sorry, it's just the way you phrased it had me thinking Germans were angry at their civil servants..

'Age 65 like the rest of Germany, although they're trying to bump that up to 67.

This is one of the reasons these people are the object of so much anger in the rest of the German population.'

I thought 'these people' was referring to German civil servants, and not Greece...

[OldEurope]

63. I will have to work until 66.

And yes, I'm a civil servant for my German hometown. And no, I won't have full salary as my pension, it will be 60%. And the "minor deductions" will be paying full income tax (unlike other retirees) and private health care, the latter raising with my age.

Maybe the rest of the population is just repeating wrong notions ad nauseam to keep their anger alive.

[DFW]

65. That you are a Beamte was already obvious

What Bundesstaat are you in, and how long have you been working? And how much do you make that you will have to be Privatversichert? Plenty of our friends are retired Beamte, get 90% of their salary as a pension, and they certainly don't have to pay for private insurance. I would have to pay it if I had only German health insurance to fall back on. €2500 a month is what I was quoted for Privatgesundheitsversicherung. Doch geschenkt. No thanks, I'll keep my US insurance, spotty though it may be.

[OldEurope]

69. I'm in Bavaria,

and all Beamte have to have private insurance regardless of income, but we don't have to pay as much as you would - because insurance companies only pay 50% of the bills, the other half is payed by the employer. And of course there are special insurance companies for Beamte, noless it's more expensive than public healthcare, and raising with the age of the client.

I started in 1981 and will retire at 66. Those who started after 1990 will have to work until 67.

The 90%-times are long gone as are the retirements at 65. In the last 30 decades we had hardly any raises of our salary, so we are now at the lower end of incomes.

Btw, I have 30 minutes as a lunch break, but I'm free to take it between 11 AM and 2 PM. My boss will notice if I exaggerated and there would be consequences.

[Violet_Crumble]

75. Is 66 the earliest you can retire at?

If I was relying on a government pension, I'd have to wait till I was 67. But I've been contributing to a pension scheme since I started work, and my employer matches my contributions and I can retire at 55 if I want to. I just checked my scheme's calculator and if I wait till 66 I'd be retiring on a fair bit more per year than I earn while I'm working. Which I guess is the reason the scheme was closed to new members back in 2005. But because I'll be a self-funded retiree, I don't have access to a lot of government benefits that other retirees will, so it does kind of balance itself out in the long run.

fwiw, all those negative stereotypes about German civil servants are similar to those I hear about Australian ones. Lazy, never at work, don't answer the phone, paid too much, don't do any work, worthless etc. It irritates me sometimes to see that sort of thing, especially because I work my arse off and know I could get paid a lot more to do what I do if I was working in the private sector

[OldEurope]

77. There are some possibilities to retire earlier,

but they all go with a huge loss of money, because you need 45 years of fulltime working to get pension without deductions. I had years of working parttime when my children were small, so I can't reach this before the regular end.

[angrychair]

30. "I hear that in the States, you're lucky to get an hour"

I am in the States and would love to get even 15 minutes.... an hour is pure fantasy. I am what some people (read republicans) would call a lazy state employee too. I am not saying you are wrong because I don't live in Germany but that "lazy, worthless civil servants" meme can touch a sensitive area for me.

[DFW]

32. It's different in the USA

I hear you guys are paid shit, have less-than optimal working conditions, get lousy pension deals and can get fired for offenses less grave than mass murder. In Germany, it's the opposite. Apples and Oranges.

[valerief]

48. When I was working, it was always 15 minutes to get my lunch from the company servery and eat

it at my desk while I worked. We had an "official" half hour -- this is salaried employees, not hourly -- but most people ate at their desks. And put in a ten hour day (not counting the commute; mine was an hour drive each way; no public transportation).

I worked for a "good" employer, too. Benefits, good work conditions. It's just the American culture of doing more, more, more for less, less, less. There's a reason America is the richest country in the world. The richest get to keep all the money.

[OldEurope]

61. That might be one reason why Germany is such a miserable

failing state where you get nothing done without huge bribes for the civil servants.

Wasn't your wife a civil servant, too, as a social worker?

I really wish you could stop generalizing from some bad experience in NRW to all civil servants in Germany.

[DFW]

64. My wife was not a civil servant (Beamte)

She was a social worker for the Diakonisches Werk sponsored by the protestant church. Not all social workers are Beamte. She had to work with the Sozialamt and the Arbeitsamt all the time, trying to get them to help people who were at risk of being tossed out on the street. Most of the time, the Beamte couldn't be bothered. Vorschrift siegt, am liebsten mit Stempel und Unterschrift.

Germany is obviously not a failing state, but it would do a LOT better if it got rid of the "Beamtenstatus." NRW is symptomatic of the whole Beamtensystem. When "civil" servants can't be fired for indifferent (or downright poor) attitude and performance, they have no incentive to turn in a good performance or have a good attitude. There are plenty of truly dedicated civil servants in Germany. If you're lucky, you might even get to work with one. But the odds are against you. I have to deal with people from Zollämtern right up to (occasionally) the Bundeskanzleramt. My generalization stands because the majority of Beamten I have run into all over Germany have reinforced my view. The notion that they all as dedicated as Batić and Leitmeier or Ballauf and Schenk is as fictitious as Tatort itself.

[OldEurope]

66. see my post #63

[Enthusiast]

98. On a past job I was allowed 20 minutes for lunch. Good ol' USA! nt

[taught_me_patience]

42. Typical office lunch in America is 1-1.5hr at places I've worked

30 min is required by law. Sometimes meetings are scheduled at lunch, but those are usually frowned on.

[DFW]

43. Half an hour would barely get you through the appetizer in Germany

And it wouldn't even be enough to order in France or Spain.

When I'm down in Barcelona, the places I visit usually close between 1 and 4 PM. That's why I usually get the 6 AM plane down and the 8 PM plane back--anything in between, and I'd have to stay the night (not the worst place to have to do that, but I have to work elsewhere, too).

[Capt13]

59. RI State law

Is 20 mins for lunch if you work more than a 6 hr shift. Also i believe 2 10 minute breaks in an 8 hr shift. I used to work 12-14 hrs and take 40 minutes for lunch as i worked inside the shop and was given the option. I don't work for that company any longer as they slowly replaced everyone who refused to take a 40hr salary. We're an "Employee At Will' state. You can be terminated for "Any reason, or No reason Without notice at anytime" Part of RI's new "Business Friendly Climate" My former employer was real big on the labor laws they liked. Ignored the one's they didn't with impunity, as the Dept of labor has shut down their enforcement division.

[OldEurope]

84. In the light of this subthread about German civil servants

you might consider the following:
The miserable shape of Deutsche Bahn started around 1985 when it was privatized. Before that, the workers at DB were mostly all civil servants with a decent income and pension and no right to strike. Then DB was privatized and started doing what private companies do: minimize costs, maximize profits. Now you have no civil servants, but underpaid staff with too many overtime hours without compensation and train wrecks and railtracks where they drive slower than a bike, due to poor maintainance.
Maybe, just maybe, privatization is not always the best way to good infrastructure.

[tclambert]

47. But Germans are supposedly so hard-working.

That's what's wrong with America. Workers don't work hard enough, or long enough hours. Just ask Jeb Bush.

[MattSh]

71. See post #70

[Orrex]

3. We're #1! We're #1! USA! USA!

Sure, Germany sounds like a good deal, but we beat the pants off of them when it comes to subsidizing self-important billionaires!

[Hugin]

14. GOOO TEAM! Wooo!

Yeah, we Americans can fund the world's largest number of CEOs! Those aren't cheap, y'know! We work ourselves into an early grave to do so and we're damn proud of it and the sacrifice it entails. By golly.

[Ghost Dog]

21. + all the wonderful

"National Security"!

[oberliner]

4. "Either I had become a completely privileged jerk ..."

A very distinct possibility.

[Telcontar]

7. Agreed

[DFW]

9. Not in the slightest.

Just a typical Swiss. Are you going to call 6,000,000 people "privileged jerks" just because they were born in Switzerland? The Swiss take care of their own. So do people in several other European countries (to varying degrees). We don't, but the Swiss didn't force us to be that way. You're not a privileged jerk just because you were born in Switzerland any more than you're a lazy jerk because you were born in Malawi or Mississippi.

[BlueMTexpat]

94. Thanks for your reply. :) eom

[Roland99]

11. Not from reading the entire article.

[n2doc]

16. Yes. How dare they ask for a living wage and benefits! n/t

[WinkyDink]

22. Really? Because "privileged" in context meant "used to European standards." What's so jerk-like?

[Javaman]

101. a sad reflection of the American mentality.

they care of their people.

we don't.

[LittleGirl]

8. this author

was very lucky in her experience in Switzerland. My spouse and I haven't been so lucky in the pay end of the deal. We're living paycheck to paycheck for the first time in 5 yrs because of the EXTREMELY high cost of living there. Our food bill tripled, our rent is twice what our mortgage payment was in the states (for an apt no less) and going out to dinner on the weekend was 50 bucks a head at least. We had to stop going out for dinner because it was so damn expensive. I went out last week to a diner type place and got a grilled chicken sandwich, small side salad and it was 20 francs. 20 francs!!! In the states that meal would have been less than 10. We live close to the German border and go there for shopping to save money on food and staples. We have not been able to take a vacation because we can't afford to go anywhere. The people are very polite and that is a great thing. But some of us didn't have such an easy time of it and are considering coming back to the states where the cost of living is much easier to control and vacations were at least yearly. We've been there nearly a year now and my spouse is not happy at all.

[DFW]

10. The cost of living there is indeed unbelievably high.

If you're not working for a Swiss outfit paying only Swiss taxes, the cost of living is a nightmare. The Swiss Franc is grossly overvalued at about $1 per franc, but there doesn't seem to be a lot that can be done about it. If you go out to dinner, and the bill is "only" $50, that is a cheap date in Switzerland.

[LittleGirl]

15. Yes, Indeed on all points eom

[WinkyDink]

23. What is it you do? Jobs can't be that easy to come by, for Americans in Schweiz, or I think my late

husband, when single, would never have come back here!

[LittleGirl]

45. I'm not working

My husband works for one of the pharma companies there.

[Hugin]

13. REC-OM-MEND!

Hallelujah! Hear, Hear! etc.

Wake up, PEOPLE!

[WinkyDink]

17. I'd never have left my parents (and especially not now, with my 91-yr-old mother), BUT---Were I to

live ANYWHERE else, Lucerne/Luzern would be it!

[IHateTheGOP]

19. Every problem America has is caused by the right wing. Every one.

[LWolf]

38. Not unless

you are saying that the power holders in the Democratic Party are right-wing.

Many of our economic problems are caused by neo-liberals, including a lot of Democratic neo-liberals.

That Democrats keep electing.

[mountain grammy]

20. I've been sick of American culture for years

and ready to move at a moment's notice. My husband won't go. Maybe after the next election.

[The2ndWheel]

24. Context is always going to be important

8 million people in Switzerland. 300 million in the US. Most states in the US are bigger than Switzerland. The histories of each country are different.

We can compare and contrast all day long, but it's not going to change anything when so many variables are different.

[moonandsixpence.]

67. Curious...

What do the back stories of each country have to do with quality of life issues? If Europeans have way more time off for vacation and don't have the same hours during a work week, that is something to emulate! This Puritan mentality has to go. It's just out of alignment for where we need to be in the modern era.

[The2ndWheel]

99. What do the back stories of people have to do with how their life turns out?

We're prisoners of history, and slaves to the future. We can't escape what happened in the past, and the future is coming, quickly, whether you want it to or not. People, and countries, have the ability to change their path, but it's not easy. It's nice to want to emulate, but not everyone is going to be Barack Obama, or The Beatles, or Sweden in some regard, etc, etc.

[moonandsixpence.]

103. I think it's a lot easier than we admit it is.

When the whole debate over Single Payer versus ACA came up, the argument in favor of it was to just put everyone on Medicare. There was already an infrastructure in place that could simply be expanded. And it is a FEDERAL program, which means mileage doesn't vary! Judging by how ACA was rolled out and the subsequent confusion of policies, how can we say that it is simpler than having done it the other way? But of course Single Payer would eliminate the insurance companies. Can't have that!

[Johnny2X2X]

26. Changing in US already

Many younger tech savvy American grads are beginning to expect some of this style of living too. I work for a large corporation(Fortune 15) who competes with silicon valley for developers. We've had to change in order to appeal to the most talented coders. More vacation, more flexibility in hours and work environments. People want to work the hours they want, they want to wear jeans or even shorts to the office. The work place is changing quickly in this country. Many young professionals in this country are more comfortable contracting because of the flexibility it provides to the lifestyles they want to lead. I know many developers who choose to work 3 months on as contractors then take 3 months off to travel. Personally, my job affords me more time off than I usually take, 3 weeks vacation, another week of personal time, 4 weeks of sick time, and we shut down the week between Xmas and New Years with pay. Work/Life balance is discussed often. So America is moving toward this already in some professions.

Of course the issue is that the divide between professionals and laborers in this country has never been wider. An education is more important than ever, you are dead in the water without a bachelors, and even then you better choose your area of study wisely. What the author leaves out of this story is how educated the Swiss people are, it is largely a society made up of professionals that she is describing. And there lies the solution for us, better education, specifically in technology. I get a close up view of both sides, have many friends who are professionals and many who are laborers, the difference is stark. For the most part, each half really has no idea how it is for the other half.

[tammywammy]

33. I work for a company that stresses work-life balance

But it still boils down to the individual managers. Every time I request to telecommute for the day, I get a guilt trip, even though corporate supports telecommuting. There are four managers in my area, two dislike the whole idea of telecommuting and the other two are 100% on board, I work for the former.

If I don't have a meeting with the customer or any activities that are required to do face-to-face why the heck can't I telecommute to run my reports and do my busy work? Oh and every time you do ask and he gives in, there's a whole discussion that "you have to be just as productive and you can't be watching Oprah and drinking a margarita while working". Every. Time.

One thing I really detest about my current manager is that he can be paternalistic in his micromanaging. I'm a working professional, I don't think I should have to clear it with him if I need to leave 15 min early or if I'm going to be 15 min late. But I do have to. It's ridiculous. And then I've also gotten a lecture about how I'll need to make up that time that week. Yeah, no shit I've worked here over 6 years.

The other think we're allowed to do, but he doesn't like is if I need to work half a day, you can work extra in the next few weeks to cover it. But even then you have to fucking email him to request "flextime". YOU HAVE TO REQUEST FLEXTIME! And this isn't a company policy, it's his personal control over people. And then management wonders why this specific area under these 4 managers have such high turnover (and I mean it was like 30% last year). I have 41 days until my year anniversary and I can apply for a job away from this BS.

[Johnny2X2X]

34. Your manager is an endangered species

If you are a professional your manager is endangered, he/she is a thing of the past. It sounds like corporate is trying to change, but aren't ensuring their managers are all the way on board, the manager and others like them have to go for your company to compete in the very near future.

Our managers never complain about telecommuting, in fact we're encouraged to do so when possible. I work from home occasionally, usually when I am not feeling well, but I am one of those people that just gets a lot more done at the office than at home. We have about 1/5 of the office that works remotely full time and that number is growing. My company employs 390,000 people worldwide.

Any tech company makes their money off from talented and creative people, to attract and keep talented and creative people you increasingly have to offer them these types of benefits and flexibility. We have managers that are wise enough to see this and are fighting for change to attract the best people, it's still a slow process, but it simply must take place. Your company is not going to be able to compete with more forward thinking/acting companies, period. My company is so large that change of this magnitude still might take too long company wide. I fear that smaller and more agile companies will outmaneuver us too often in the near future.

We are living in an age of exponential growth of human knowledge and exponential change in the business place. Companies that don't innovate will suffer. Companies that can attract innovators will prosper. Often these conversations with people lead to them saying, "well, my industry is not technology based and is different than yours so..." All business and industry is technology based now, all professions are driven by technological innovation in one way or another. The lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, civil servants, and accountants of tomorrow will use technology to do their jobs in ways they can't yet imagine. Those companies who position to attract the most creative talent are the only ones that will be able to compete.

[tammywammy]

39. Oh yes, he's a dying breed

The issue is that there's corporate and then separate business units underneath it. So if management from the top of the business unit doesn't think it's important it doesn't flow down to people like me.

I transferred from one business unit to a new one almost a year ago. At the previous unit, the head of the whole unit sent an email/memo to all managers/leaders basically saying that he knows managers are not allowing telecommuting but that HE sets the policies. And I heard that at least one manager (director level) who was notorious for not allowing telecommuting retired soon thereafter.

But at the unit I work at now scheduling meetings to regularly occur on an off day or weekends or at 7am or 6pm is a regular occurrence.

Corporate understands, but executive management here hasn't made it a priority. Which leads to an astronomical turnover rate. I mean I'm counting down the days until I can start applying for a new position and I want to go back to the unit I was in. I knew two months into this position that this wasn't a good fit for me. And the sad part, is its not related to my actual job, it's all the other BS.

[Johnny2X2X]

40. I would talk to HR

Might not be able to help you immediately, but HR usually has their finger on the pulse of what the corporate office wants. They might help you transfer early.

Many times you'll find that HR is championing these changes in the 1st place. They're the ones having to find talent, they're the ones that tend to study stuff like work place environments and productivity.

[RobinA]

105. HR...

[CANDO]

60. I don't wish to offend...

But for cripe's sake, the conditions for your employment are certainly far removed from a vast majority of even college educated people. You are in a specialized niche that for now may be on the leading edge. Give the corp's time and they'll have you training a foreign national on an H1B to do your job.

[Alkene]

93. +1

[DrBulldog]

27. America has sucked for a long time . . .

. . . but Americans have been too dumb to VOTE their way out of it.

[Arugula Latte]

37. And they're SO invested in proclaiming that USA is #1!

They desperately want to believe this and get furious if anyone suggests otherwise. Yeah, we are number one amongst developed nations -- in incarceration, corporate ownership of government, obesity, gun deaths, illiteracy, wealth gap, predatory for-profit health insurance, unaffordable dental care, crumbling infrastructure, crappy public transportation, etc. etc. etc.

[DrBulldog]

28. With I could be 30 again with the knowledge I have now about the world . . .

. . . I'd leave the U.S. in a heartbeat, especially to start my family all over again, although I'm more likely to head for the warmer climes of New Zealand than Europe.

[Nay]

35. Me, too. We considered it, but Mr Nay didn't want to. Grrrrr.

[riverbendviewgal]

29. Excellent article.

I knew Americans in military stationed in Germany. They were so impressed living there and amazed at so much time off for family the Germans had.
As for me, I grew up in the USA and left at 21 to live in Canada. I was amazed how different Canada was, is.

The major plus is health care for all, which was so good when husband and son treated for their cancers. They had palliative care too. It costs us zero. Plus I got over 2k for each from govt for their burial expenses.

I worked with 3 weeks vacation, ending with six weeks when I retired.

No regrets for me in choosing to live in Canada.

Switzerland sounds even better. I have relatives living England and love it there.

[closeupready]

31. Switzerland as a place to live has NEVER appealed to me.

As a postcard perfect setting for Sound of Music or a place to ski (or bank), sure; as a place to live ... huh?

I guess if I had been from somewhere in the Third World, then perhaps the prosperity of Switzerland would have seemed alluring, but I am who I am, and I was raised in middle-class America, and for me, 'world travel' was mostly about European capitals like London or Paris - BIG cities where LOTS of stuff happens, where there are lots of people, liberal culture, established civilization. I didn't even see the big deal about California, lol.

Anyway, interesting article. Thanks for posting it. K&R

[WinkyDink]

51. TSOM was in Salzburg, Austria.

[Romulox]

36. The wages of sin are death. The wages of neoliberal economics are... this.

Did you think everybody but you could be outsourced or undercut?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

41. Working for a living is a highly overrated pastime with few redeeming features.

Payday being the most redeeming, if not the only redeeming feature.

[daredtowork]

44. There seems no good way to protest it, either

After the decline of the labor movement, American workers were divided and conquered. Identity politics are competitive - everyone is trying to pipeline or at least point out the relative discrimination against their separate group. (Actually studies say overweight white women get shafted the most, but they don't have a strong organizational identity fighting for them - only a lot of bullies attacking them for their "ugliness" and potential costs to the healthcare system).

The Occupy movement is the closest we have gotten to creating a coalition to fight back, but since it has no leaders and could not agree on an agenda, Occupy kept getting hijacked by different subsets with different agendas. #BLM works in the exact opposite way. While #BLM is by far the most important structural issue in American politics, there is also a #DisabledLivesMatter movement, because disabled people often lose their lives due to miscommunications in police encounters. There is #HomelessLivesMatter to draw attention to people dying in the street and the escalating housing crisis. There is #NativeAmericanLivesMatter with reasons similar to, but history different than,#BLM. So, from the ground up, these movements diverge instead of unify - each suspicious they are taking from each other instead of collaborating with each other.

The colossal disproportionate disadvantage of the isolated American worker in the American employment system sucks. All the advantages and efficiencies of mechanized and digitized systemization accrue to employers. People seeking work are forced to do vast amounts of unpaid labor. In this era of deskilling and rapid technology change, the time and cost burden of learning new skills has been shifted on to job-seekers: and this has increasingly implied that a person needs wealth and some prescience/luck to get into the right subject areas during their first shot at college (and make the right connections) in the first place. Then the rest of their lives they are subjected to the turmoil of going from project to project, schmoozing for gigs, 24/7 networking, and drinking the kool-aid of the new economy that has been super-imposed on their life. There is no way to push back or to demand "life work balance".

Ever since Bush and Clinton started tweaking labor in the 1990s to accelerate "innovation" and give the "new economy" a chance to "grow", there has been no limits to what employers can do to their workers in the name of productivity. The needs of business and competing in a global marketplace have been prioritized over the lives of people.

Why is that? Perhaps it's time for a spiritual, philosophical, or a humanitarian revolution. People seem to have forgotten that they own their own life and they should be able to live with their own purpose in the limited time they have before they die. What deity pronounced that we were put here to serve the needs of global business machinery and sacrifice our lives for the enrichment and lifestyles of the 1%? We are doing this too ourselves by allowing our political representatives to legislate for the advantage of International business rather than focusing on laws that protect the life-work balance of the many and perhaps reduce working hours across the board in an age of ostensible technological abundance.

[arikara]

46. Same with Canada

Our working situations have become awful here too. Pay goes down as demands on the employee goes up. I worked for a company that was bought out by a German company. At the time, we had very good benefits including twice as many holidays as legislated. The benefits the German workers had were even better than ours, and the wages higher too. But one of the first things they did was to kick back the bennies to the minimum 2 weeks required by law to any new Canadian hires. They lowered wages and changed the contracts so they didn't have to pay overtime too. Really really crappy.

Now if you want to work part time anywhere, people think you are nuts. Yet I can't think of anything better than a 3 day work week.

[RoccoR5955]

49. In the Netherlands

They work a 35 hour work week. They do not work overtime. They spend that time with their families. Taxes are kind of high, up to 40%. When they are ill, they can be out until they get better. They let parents take 6 weeks off for birth of a child, which they get paid for. If you are over 50 you get paid more. You get 6 weeks paid vacation. You get a pension, and social security (which is much more generous than in the US). People can live off of minimum wage. It may be difficult, but it is doable. There are social services for people who cannot find work. If you are on unemployment for a long time, they pay you to take a couple of weeks off in the summer, because they say that you would go crazy looking for a job without some sort of vacation.

So what am I still doing in the US?
Learning my Dutch, so I can go over there, and live with my girlfriend, get married, and retire in two years!

[Recursion]

57. And their unemployment rate is 150% of ours

And is low compared to most of the EU.

Which, given their safety net, is a trade-off I'd make, but most Americans wouldn't; we still have this puritan "everybody needs to work all the time" fetish.

[eridani]

78. Wonder if our incarceration rate plus our unemployment rate comes anywhere close n/t

[Recursion]

79. It cuts the difference to about 125% (if you include both countries' incarceration rates)

The Netherlands have one of the highest incarceration rates in the EU, though obviously it still disappears next to ours...

[eridani]

80. Do you know if they screw with the data like the US does? n/t

[Recursion]

81. Oh, I have no doubt they do, though no firsthand knowledge

Every government does everything it can to tinker with single-line indicators like unemployment. (The professional side of the US government is actually pretty good about this, publishing 6 different labor underutilization levels with pretty reliable accuracy; how those levels get announced by politicians, on the other hand...)

That said, the Netherlands' immigrant population has some significant and stubborn unemployment and especially underemployment, which is probably behind a lot of the tension there.

[eridani]

86. Oopsie! We both forgot labor force participation rate

Those numbers are a lot harder to screw around with.

https://www.thefinancialist.com/the-participation-gap/

At first blush, Europe’s unemployment problem seems much worse than that of the U.S. The euro zone’s current 11.9 percent unemployment rate is nearly double the 6.7 percent in the U.S. But factor in long-term trends in respective labor force participation rates — Europe’s has been improving while that of the U.S. has declined — and the disparity disappears. If participation rates had stayed where they were in 2007, both Europe and the U.S. would have had participation-adjusted unemployment rates of just under 10 percent in 2012 – lower than Europe’s 11.4 percent and higher than the 8.1 percent rate in the U.S. at the time. It’s hard to claim bragging rights for your employment picture if the improvement has largely come from people dropping out of the workforce entirely.

“Although the different headline rates of unemployment seem to say one thing, a look at participation rates tell a different story,” says Credit Suisse European economist Steven Bryce, one of a team that published a recent report on employment trends entitled “Not For Lack of Participation.” “While the U.S. does have lower unemployment, you have to take into consideration the number of people who have dropped out of the labor force altogether.” Indeed, Europe’s participation rate – a tally of those working plus those actively seeking work — has increased significantly over the past twenty years, climbing from 65.2 percent in 1994 to 72.2 percent in 2012, according to OECD data. The U.S. participation rate has declined slightly over the same time period, from 76.7 percent to 73.1 percent.

The fact that there’s nuance behind the unemployment numbers isn’t exactly shocking news. What might be? The gender-related trends underlying those diverging participation rates. Over the last 20 years, working-age American men have been dropping out of the job market. And in Europe, women have been entering the job market in remarkable numbers.

[Recursion]

87. We're older than eastern Europe, which eats into that

Though I'm a contrarian on this subject: I think a labor participation rate of 40% would be about right. I also think a $30/hour minimum wage would be about right. So take that with a grain of salt.

[eridani]

89. I agree--we are going to have to do something about technological unemployment

If fewer and fewer people can make more and more stuff, what other option is there?

[Recursion]

90. None that I can think of. A service economy is still positive-sum

A lot of people (even on the left) seem to have this idea that a service economy doesn't actually add value, but I think that's completely wrong: (many) services add real value. But employment is increasingly not the conduit that money gets from manufacturers to consumers.

So, to my naive brain, the solution seems to be to embrace that: we're going to have an economy where most people are engaged in the production of services. That will require some of the money from those engaged in the manufacture of goods. If only we had some mechanism of transferring money from one group of people to another... oh, that's right: taxation.

But, Taxes Are Evil (tm), so that gets you voted out of office. This is why I like the framing of a "social dividend". The US government takes a modest portion of profits and redistributes them to people. Honestly, I'd like to see a social dividend replace the entire entitlement apparatus.

[eridani]

91. Sounds like a potentially interesting OP--go for it! n/t

[RoccoR5955]

100. I don't know where you got your sources but.

It's about average for the EU.
And that work all the time crap is something new. I remember when people were expected to work till they could retire, then had a defined benefit for retirement and could live well. Only in the past 30 years (since Raygun) has it been that people are expected to work until they drop dead.

[Skittles]

50. I cannot remember the last time I had a real lunch break

[erpowers]

52. There Were Some Good Things in the Article

There were some things that I think would be good to try in America. However, I do realize as someone else in this discussion pointed out, there are 300 million people in the United States. There are far less people in Switzerland.

I would be nice to try to give women about two months of maternity leave at a 50% pay rate. The 300 million population of America would probably make it hard to give every full time worker 4 weeks paid vacation, but there should at least be an attempt to give each full time worker two weeks of paid vacation. In addition, the United States needs to work hard to increase the average income to anywhere from around $92,000-$128,000. This could be done by helping workers to improve their skills and helping women, especially black women, get higher paying jobs.

[BlueMTexpat]

95. Just FYI, the following article provides some

good information about maternity leave generally.

http://time.com/money/3136250/international-labor-organization-paid-maternity-paternity-leave-iran-u-s-mongolia/

From the article:

The land of the free and the home of the brave is one of two of the 185 countries or territories in the world surveyed by the United Nation’s International Labor Organization that does not mandate some form of paid maternity leave for its citizens. Many are familiar with the generosity of Scandinavian nations when it comes to parents bringing new children into the world, but who would believe that we trail Iran in our support of new families?

Iran mandates that new mothers receive two-thirds of their previous earnings for 12 weeks from public funds, according to a the ILO report. In America, mothers are entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid leave—but only if they work for a company that has more than 50 employees, per the Family and Medical Leave Act. And, for some context, more than 21 million Americans work for businesses that employ 20 people or fewer, per the U.S. Census Bureau.

The ILO report is full of unflattering comparisons that will leave American workers feeling woozy. Georgia—the country—allows its mothers to receive 18 weeks of paid time off at 100% of what they made before. Mongolia gives its new moms 17 weeks of paid time off at 70% of previous earnings. (Mongolia’s GDP is $11.5 billion, or about a third of Vermont’s.)

But the USA is "exceptional" and "#1!" - at least in the minds of GOPers.

[erpowers]

102. Some Americans Too

At the end of your post you wrote, "But the USA is exceptional and #1! - at least in the minds of GOPers." Some people other than the GOP make the statement that America is "exceptional" and "#1". When reading the snippet you posted I thought the way they keep Americans from having these policies is by saying, but America is better than all those other countries. Not doing what those other countries do is what makes America great. It is like that Cadillac commercial that came out a few years ago in which the guy talks about the fact that America is great because Americans do not take four weeks of vacation.

[BlueMTexpat]

104. You're correct that too many of us -

whichever party philosophy we adhere to - seem to love our ignorance about the state of the world and the US's place in it. So those people continue to chant and apparently believe these meaningless memes that literally fly in the face of the facts.

Unfortunately for them - and for us, because their willful (blissful?) ignorance affects us all - they are wrong. Since the 1980s, we have been regressing. Slowly at first, but now the pace is incrementally faster and gaining momentum - massively speeded up under Bush II_Cheney.

It is still not too late - we have the resources and many wonderful and capable people to make the US a better place for all. Prez O has done a nearly impossible job in trying to contain the most regressive elements, especially against non-stop obstructionism from the GOP, as well as some Dems. But the GOP has truly gone off the deep end. Its erstwhile "fringe" elements have become mainstream; it is supported by the so-called "liberal" media; and 19th-century "robber baron" types like the Kochs seem to have endless financial resources to keep setting the agenda through proxies like ALEC, using stooges like any one of the current crop of GOPer candidates, and running the country into the ground for all but the One Percent.

These people don't know history - or don't want to and scorn those who do - and there WILL come a breaking point even among placidly complacent Americans, even though that point may not occur while I am still alive.

It will take concerted political efforts at ALL levels - not simply the national offices - even to begin to root out these noxious political weeds/philosophies whose roots have grown deep, especially since the 1980s.

[SheilaT]

53. A very long time ago,

as in a good forty years ago (I'm now 66) I realized that I didn't live to work; I worked to live.

I was at the time an airline ticket agent, and not only was there a lot of involuntary overtime when flights were late or cancelled, or another employee called in sick, but we NEVER got a holiday off, or an extra day in lieu of the holiday itself. Never. The up side of the job was that the work didn't follow me home. At the airport I worked. Away from the airport my time was my own.

[pansypoo53219]

54. you expect better serf?

[Cleita]

55. Wow. I really like the idea of being able to negotiate the number of

hours a week and still have a regular job.

[Recursion]

82. This is why I prefer working for small businesses and non-profits

Yes, I've probably made literally a third to a half of what I would have if I had stayed in .com's, but I've always been able to negotiate fewer hours while maintaining benefits. However there's only a few cities with a big enough concentration of non-profits that you can reliably do that (DC, NYC, BOS, SFO, maybe Philly and Chicago).

[byronius]

56. Great post.

[Gloria]

68. I remember working a temp job in a bank in London

years ago and every AM, the tea lady would come by with snacks and beverages to purchase for a minimal sum.

Don't know if that still exists there, but it was a very nice touch as I typed up letters (struggling with the keyboard, which
was a bit different ...)..

In all the jobs I had, everyone worked very hard...but got loads of vacation time compared to slaves here!

[Violet_Crumble]

74. We used to have tea ladies when I started work as a civil servant...

They came around at morning and afternoon tea time even though there was a cafeteria in the building. But those were the long ago days where smoking at peoples desks was allowed and you could order an ashtray through the stationery catalogue. Cost cutting happened over the years and now I work in a building with no cafeteria, no tea ladies, and where if I'm gone too long when I pop out to buy a coffee, I'm likely to get frowned at by my manager

[StarzGuy]

73. The obvious question then is why did you come back to the US?

If living there was so sweet why return to the US? What was the factors that led you to come back? Just asking...

[Spitfire of ATJ]

76. Yeah? But are their rich as rich as OUR rich?

[Recursion]

83. Switzerland's? Absolutely

They have some of the most one-percenty of the one-percenters. Basically all intra-Eurozone arbitrage has to go through Switzerland, and they take a cut.

[CBGLuthier]

85. Several people comment that America's300 million vs their 8 million makes a difference. Why?

It's not like America's 300 million are competing for only 8 million good jobs.

I can sort of understand the arguments about why America can not have decent rail because they are so much bigger and spread out but why can the number of people in an economy not scale up?

I think the real truth is most of Europe has it so much better than the US because Americans have some kind of fatal flaw that makes them willing to be treated like dogs all in the hopes that somehow it will all get better some day when the real truth is it is getting worse every day.

That's why i left. When you can not convince a couple of hundred million people they are getting fucked by their owners it seems obvious that too many of them just will never learn to stand up for themselves and the workers of America will continue to be thoroughly fucked.

I just hope I can get my kids out before the place completely falls apart.

[Recursion]

88. It's not really the size but the diversity

The size, if anything, works in our favor. The issue is the diversity: people do not support benefits for people of other races. It's true everywhere. But in the US that truth becomes very clear because we're the only major economy with anything like our racial diversity (the closest second is the UK, which is basically repeating our arguments).

As many people have said, reduce the US to its white population and we'd have the most advanced social democratic economy in the world, because nobody would mind paying for it.

[The2ndWheel]

97. It's the diversity, but the size also plays a role

Look at a list of countries by population, and the US, with the 3rd highest population, is really the only developed economy until the tail end of the top 10. So in some ways, we have the economy of a major developed country, and the population of a major developing country. It's a unique situation, and why the US has some unique issues.

Every country has their own variables in the equation. It's difficult to compare. It's tough to do with just European countries, as we can see. Germany, Greece. North, south.

[Alkene]

92. Welcome home.

[BlueMTexpat]

96. As a US expat who has lived in

Switzerland for the past 20+ years, I can vouch firsthand for what Chantal Panozzo is saying.

That better quality of life is also why I chose to retire here after working as an international civil servant (fonctionnaire international). It was an option that the Swiss Government extends to all those who meet residence requirements and other qualifications.

My net worth is closer to the Swiss average cited by Chantal than anywhere remotely close to anything One Percent, although it likely still makes me better off than most of my fellow Americans who work every bit as hard as I have, but did not have the same opportunities for whatever reason. I am probably one of many who keep that Swiss average as low as it is.

In addition to what Chantal cites, my commune (village) also treats its "seniors' royally, scheduling an annual all-expense paid day excursion to a Swiss destination in the Spring and a Holiday Dinner in December. The dinner includes appetizers, a three-course meal, champagne, white and red wines, coffee (or whatever beverage one prefers after a meal) and a "pousse-cafe." It also includes after-meal entertainment, which is usually a lot of fun. Each commune - at least here in la Suisse romande (French-speaking Switzerland) does the same, so far as I know.

The Swiss education system is stellar; health care and access to it are excellent - although one must pay premiums to private companies (whose fees are regulated by the State). No one goes bankrupt here because of health care expenses - the State will step in to help in dire circumstances - and proof of health insurance coverage is an absolute condition of residence. Switzerland does NOT have a national heath care system such as that in France or the UK (currently under attack by Cameron and his Tory cronies). The public transit system here is also outstanding and the infrastructure is amazing, occasionally even mind-blowing.

But one really must either have Swiss citizenship or have secured a job here before being even being considered for residence. It is one's employer who must apply for a residence permit for non-Swiss citizens.

The Swiss are also becoming quite xenophobic since the RW has been on the rise in Europe in recent years. Although Switzerland is not part of the European Union, it is party to the Schengen Agreement (http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/schengen/index_en.htm) and there is currently major friction between its open border responsibilities under Schengen and RW desires to cap immigration drastically. See, e.g., https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/in-depth/immigration-quotas-approved-by-voters and http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/30/switzerland-rejects-immigration-cap and http://lenews.ch/2015/03/17/swiss-immigration-vote-re-run/

FYI: I also spend time in the US each year as most in my family still reside there - in various geographic locations. MD is my voting residence. But like Chantal, I find it outrageous that the richest nation on Earth is not able to provide at least some of the same amenities for ALL its citizens/legal residents that Switzerland - and all other industrialized nations, along with several so-called "developing" nations - routinely provide to theirs.