It's time for a minimum vacation law

[Go2Peace]

Some full time jobs in our country actually work people 51-52 weeks a year. Isn't that almost like slavery? Why not at least a 2 week (10 working day) minimum vacation requirement for someone working at least half time?

Here is some comparative information for other countries:

Keep in mind, these are legal *Minimums*

Australia
Not required, but 28 days is standard. Additional Long service leave is also payable.
"Long Service Leave" - 2 Months Payed "Sabbatical" after 7-10 years with an employer

Austria
35 days, for elderly employees 42 days

Belgium
20 days, premium pay

Bulgaria
minimum 20 working days

Croatia
18 working days

Czech Republic
4 weeks

Denmark
6 weeks, of which 5 days can be "sold" back to the employer - omsorgsdage (carer’s leave).

Finland
35 days

France
5 weeks + 2 weeks of RTT (Reduction du Temps de Travail, in English : Reduction of Working Time) = 7 weeks. The most significant vacation time of any country in the world.

Germany
4 weeks (24 "workable" days, i.e. Mo to Sa, even if the working week is Mo to Fri), plus 9 to 13 bank holidays

Hungary
20 working days

Ireland
20 days, plus 9 public holidays

Israel
14 days

Italy
20-30 days plus 12 public holidays

Latvia
4 weeks

Netherlands
4 weeks
New Zealand
4 weeks as of April 1, 2007

Norway
25 working days

Poland
20 business days, 26 business days after 10 years of employment

Romania
minimum 20 working days

Spain
30 calendar days

Sweden
25-32 working days, depending on age

Switzerland
28 days

Ukraine
24 calendar days

United Kingdom
20 calendar days, plus 8 bank holidays


How much vacation do people *average*?

http://tinyurl.com/How-Much-Vacation-avg

[hansont]

1. Work at Wal-Mart? 1 week *after* a year. Only Christmas and Thanksgiving off

[Go2Peace]

2. I think I heard that tourism is 20% of Europe's economy? More vacation helps the economy?

Not to mention productivity. But I have always thought it was immoral that someone could actually be required to work pretty much year round with only a week off. To me that is almost slavery? 51 weeks on, 1 week off? I can't imagine someone having to do that all of their life.

[dipsydoodle]

8. More vacation helps the economy?

I'd never really looked at it that way but in some respects that right. People go on holiday and spend money which becomes the income of others either in their own country on another. That's part of the reason why Spain , one of the four main PIGS countries in Europe ,suffered so much with the recession - they were heavily reliant on tourism and their construction businesses for income.

BTW - PIGS is the current acronym for Portugal, Ireland , Greece and Spain - Italy is occasionally included too.

I'm on permanent holiday - retired. :)

[whathehell]

10. What is a "PIGS" country?...You explained the acronym, but

you said it in this context "one of the four main...".

[dipsydoodle]

20. Those are the initials

of Portgugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain : hence the acronymn P.I.G.S. It's the financial world which uses the acronym for any one of those four and so it gets used on TV news too.

[TheBigotBasher]

36. All four use the Euro

and all four have extremely high budget deficits, way above limits agreed on entry to the Euro.

[DFW]

3. My wife is a social worker here in Germany

The six weeks she gets is barely enough to prevent burnout.

My daughter, who graduates Law School (law review, top 5%) in the States in May can't find a decent job
anywhere, and will probably be moving back here to Germany after she passes the bar. The German law firms
that have expressed an interest in her actually require their people to take their 6 weeks vacation to
prevent burnout, whereas my daughter knows lawyers who started in American firms five years ago and haven't
had a vacation yet (and are near being burned out).

[Go2Peace]

4. Isn't that amazing: The employers actually *want* employees to take 6 weeks vacation?

We are told that is "unnatural" and "anti-competitive".

[DFW]

5. Common sense would dictate that it's anything but anti-comptetive

A burned-out lawyer will never be at the top of their skills, and if they aren't,
they are useless to their employer, so who needs them? It seems to me that it's
plain old good business sense for them to take their vacations.

[Go2Peace]

7. Most of these are minimums, imagine getting 8 weeks after 10 years - How humane

and amazingly Germany is still one of the largest and most competitive countries in the world. Despite universal health care, vacation, and heavy investment in their infrastructure.

[DireStrike]

13. Ah, but you can wait till they quit and then hire a new one from the endless piles of desperate

new workers!

[DFW]

24. You can always do that, agreed

Not exactly the best way to acquire experienced, dedicated long-term employees, though........

[DireStrike]

26. And how do those employees generate next quarter's profit?

We will just hire the ones that have been embittered by other employers. They have to work somewhere. Meanwhile, the other employers will hire the employees we've embittered.

See, we've CUT COSTS! That's all that matters. :sarcasm:

[Go2Peace]

32. We need to realize that situation is unique mostly to the US.

We seem to think it is "unchangable", but the fact is that the anti-social distortions of business in America is far more severe than many countries. It is something that actually can be dealt with and made better. We simply don't have to accept it, but we *do* have to change it.

[era veteran]

6. U.S.A., use and throw away

[Bluebear]

11. +1

[Sisaruus]

9. Vacation bonus pay!

I was chatting with a government employee on a train in Finland last year and she said they get a 50% bonus during the weeks that they are on vacation. "So we can enjoy our time off."

And they have universal health care.

And free college education.

[Maine-ah]

12. I haven't had a vacation in four years.

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[vadawg]

14. im pretty luck in that i only work 15 days a month as it is, and i get

one day a month vacation time and can comp days as well, i try to make sure that i can take the family away four times a year for two weeks. One of the good things about working in the public sector and we are encouraged to take as much as we can to prevent the burnout as well...

[HughBeaumont]

15. It's not just vacation. We're falling behind in LOTS of areas.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/HughBeaumont/46

* Since 1979, hourly earnings for 80% of American workers have risen by just 1 percent (all stats factor inflation). The average wage was 17.71/hr in 2007, falling by 5 percent compared to 1979.

· If wages kept pace with productivity, the average full time worker would be earning 58,000/year. Instead, he/she earns 42,000/yr.

· 20% of families with children under 6 live below the poverty line.

· The typical American worker puts in 1804 hours a year. That's 135 hours more than the average British worker, 240 more than the French worker and 370 more hours than the German worker. That could be because we’re also the only industrialized nation that has no mandates regarding a minimum number of vacation days per year (unlike the Swedish and the French, who mandate 5 and 6 weeks, respectively). The good ol' Yew Ess Ay is also one of four countries (out of 173 nations surveyed) that do not provide paid maternity leave.

· Almost ¼ of the American workforce (33 million workers) earn less than 10 dollars an hour, which is less than poverty for a family of four.

· Just one third of laid off workers receive unemployment benefits, down from 50 percent a generation ago, and the federal program for UI and retraining has been de-funded by more than 10 billion dollars in the last quarter century.

· The typical CEO in 1976 earned (use that term loosely) 36 times what their average worker did. In 1993, it rose to 131 times more. Today, that disparity is now at 369 times more their average worker’s salary, down from 441 times more five years ago, but still lousy nonetheless.

· The American economy has lost one in five factory jobs since 2000 (likely greater now since this book was published in 2008).

· One out of six managerial employees worked more than 60 hours a week, according to a 2004 BLS survey. This statistic doesn’t include commute time.

· A Pew Charitable Trusts survey from 2004 found that men in their 30s had a median income of 12 percent less than their fathers did at the same age.


I don't know what I find more hilarious - When people say "The U.S. is the GREATEST country to work in and for" (yeah, provided you have tons of degrees and experience, and even THAT'S not the guarantee it used to be), or the fact that when I originally wrote this article on a Democratic board, only 5 people responded.

[iceman66]

16. The REASON they are able to do this in those countries

is because they have universal health care!

In the US, it is actually CHEAPER for an employer to pay someone to work 70 hours a week, including overtime, than to pay two employees to work 35 hours a week. In Europe, the reverse is true.

The reason for the difference is HEALTH CARE COSTS.

This is something that almost NEVER gets pointed out in the health care debate!

[elehhhhna]

19. they also protect their citizens JOBS, rather than auctioning them to the lowest

international bidder.

[Dappleganger]

17. My husband doing contract work had to negotiate holiday pay

after he'd been doing it 6 months (they wouldn't consider it before, so he had to take a hit each holiday the plant closed). Now they are paying for each holiday, but he gets NO vacation whatsoever. When he was laid off a year ago he had 4 weeks built up, the longest we'd ever had and we were looking forward to using it for some nice driving trips with the kids.

But I guess what he has is better than another permanent vacation. :(

[paulsby]

18. i get a little over 3 weeks

plus the ability to work overtime and build comp, which can be used like vacation.

i think 2 weeks would be a good minimum.

[vadawg]

21. plus as you have been riding the wooden cruiser for a while we all know you need a vacation from

burnout or was it wooden splinters ;P

[paulsby]

23. yes, that 4 month break was BRUTAL

brutal i tell you. :)

otoh, when i returned to work my uniform pants didn't fit.

i know more than a few officers who enjoyed similar breaks due to "administrative leave" but i have never been so lucky, or unlucky, depending on the circ's of same.

of course when i returned, little had changed. my dept. still suffers from mind numbingly stupid inefficiencies (welcome to govt. work), criminals were still doing their thang (they missed me. well, actually two did say they missed me :) ), some people were still driving like complete morons, innocent people were still being victimized by scum, and the average good people were going about their daily lives w/o my help.

[RB TexLa]

22. You are not proposing we force people to take time off from work, right?

Just a required minimum available vacation time for employees?

[Go2Peace]

34. Not at all. All these countries allow employee to "give back" the time if they wish

But other than in an extreme situation, why would anyone with a healthy social and family life work 52 weeks a year?

[RB TexLa]

35. To make 52 weeks or more of income. Some companies still pay you for unsued vacation and sick time.

[TheCowsCameHome]

25. I'm more interested in having full employment

than how much time off people have.

[Go2Peace]

29. I am sorry you are without work, but they are both connected

I was out of work for 2.5 years during the dot com bust, had to move in with family to survive. But I still would have been for legislated vacation time. We need work but we also need reasonable regulations. They are both linked.

[PeaceNikki]

27. Good luck with that! We can't even get mandatory paid sick days passed.

http://www.milwaukeesickleave.com/

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/36589399.html

[Go2Peace]

30. Part of the reason is in lack of education. Most people don't realize

how we are pretty alone in our lack of laws for these. Then of course you have the idiots that are living zombies and don't know what to do outside of work and tv.

[Stevenmarc]

28. Cart meet horse

[Go2Peace]

31. Hate to break it to you, but we will NEVER have full employment again

We have been going through a serious productivity shift. In most industries it takes a third of the labor to provide the same service/products that were provided 50 years ago. In some it takes 10 or even 50x less people to make a widget. There was a reduction in industrial jobs going on even in China, and even BEFORE the downturn.

We are going to have to enact labor reforms to deal with the future economy. Our problems are not about having work for people, like Germany and other European countries we need to simply change our priorities and make the system work for *everyone*. But that won't happen until we debunk the false "free market" ideologies that keep us from progressing to a better place.

[KillCapitalism]

33. I'm Jealous.

Seeing the amount of leave people get in the CIVILIZED world makes me envious. Too bad all these countries don't have completely open immigration policies, or I would go.