In many parts of Europe, it’s common for workers to take off weeks at a time, especially during the summer. Envious Americans say it’s time for the U.S. to follow suit.
Some 66% of U.S. workers say companies should adopt extended vacation policies, like a month off in August, in their workplaces, according to a Morning Consult survey of 1,047 U.S. adults.
sure, but effectively they deadlock the system and prevent any structural reform. Also, national polling currently has close to 50% of the voting population supporting a trump second term. We can't even get the Democratic Party to support universal public healthcare. The ideological delusion, the willingness of the people to support a system that makes their lives anxious and miserable, cuts across both political parties as well as the general population.
So much this. We have an antiquated and ridiculous system that gives the regressives far, far too much of a voice.
Socialism is a very nice son of rationalism. It is time for a review
That's because politicians are so far separated from the average American. Some of them are so old and senile and have been in power so long, they don't even realize how bad it is for the average American, and on top of that, because they don't think it's as bad as it is, they don't care.
It's not even 50% tits our fucked up districts, and also it's gotten like this because of legislation to defund education. But younger voters are becoming more informed, change can happen. It will take effort and time though.
It's the money in politics. Doesn't matter how young or old the politicians are.
I'd say it depends but the older ones are more likely to be influenced by money
I have always wished that requiring congressmen work a minimum wage job in their district that they have to look for and apply to like the rest of us while out of session would do anything. Deal with some Karens to humble them properly.
No. It's because the constitution effective abolishes democracy, by ensuring a two-party system.
In the US democracy is limited to one coin toss worth of decision making once every four years. Add to that that their first-to-the-post system eliminates all election power to non-swing-states, that means ~40 of the states have no democratic input at all, and the rest has up to 15 bit worth of democratic input over their whole life time.
Thus politicians have nothing to fear at all. They mess up, who cares? It's gonna be their turn after the next term limit anyway.
The Constitution doesn't employ a 2 party system and actually our founding fathers were against it. It has been put in place since then. I do think the electoral college system does cause issues though. We need a ranked choice system or something else where all votes have some value.
The overwhelming majority of working class adults want these things, but also the overwhelming majority of working class adults also work for large corporations who do not want these things (because it costs them money/profits). Guess who has more money to buy off politicians? Walmart/Amazon/Target would work together to never let these beneficial policies go through congress. It would be worth it to them to spend literal billions to prevent it, because it would cost them billions in the long run.
The sad reality is we don't really live in a democracy. It's an oligarchy that allows us to think we are in control.
I have never understood why Americans doesn't have trade union?
Like in Denmark we have trade unions where a working area is united like the health care area, have "FOA" there is trading "time off" payment and so on, for all in this area.?
There are trade unions in the USA but the cultural difference compared to in a Scandinavian country is very striking, both in terms of American vs Scandinavians unions themselves but also their support. It would surprise many Scandinavians to learn that many Americans don't even want trade unions because it's for example commonly seen as that they interfere with career paths, promoting seniority at the cost of new blood or keep the wages low because individual wages can be affected.
I think the culture collision here is that the whole idea behind unions in Scandinavia is to offer a stronger collective voice and bargaining actor to increase wages and other subjects that improves the standards and quality of life / motivation of their employees so that the relationship between the work place and the individual is less asymmetrical.
But it's been a long journey and it still is even if unionizing in USA has seen an uptick in debates lately, because USA has a radical and capitalistic history where there are loud and influential voices that even asking for basic rights on a job can be seen as "greed" and the company looks for someone being less of a bother and not asking these questions instead. All due to weak unions, of course. Otherwise the company would of course lose too much in employee skills by excluding everyone having these demands (and already being union members) like the situation here in Scandinavia where this by consequence is simply not an option.
This is at least my two cents of this entire situation from the "outside" also in Europe, please correct me if I'm wrong...
98% of the people who vote are voting for repressive corporate culture.
The people who don't vote can't afford to miss a day of work, and even if they did, they know the people they have to choose from won't do anything to change it.
Therefore these polls are meaningless.
Oregon passed a minimum 40 hours of sick leave on top of vacation. That's what vote by mail and ballot measures get you.
Hawaii has had socialized universal healthcare for like 50 years.
That's because Americans have no say in these issues. They're brainwashed (well, 1/2 is) to think those things are sOciAliSm, which apparently is bad despite many voters having socialized medicine that they love. It's the American way, convincing people that what they want is not in their best interest.
I would say th other half is brainwashed too, your 2 party system sucks. Things won't get better if you have no choice in elections
Why green?
the color of ....grass?
Land of the free, amirite?
The think tanks funded by rich people saying "They want to take away your guns/cows/statues etc" and "unions suck" are better at this than we are.
We can want all we want, but a whole pile of the media is owned by the 1% and what they want is the status quo.
Conservatism is literally, don't change anything.
Make America like the 1950s.
Racism and bigotry are a hell of a drug.
51% support slower employee response time outside of work hours
Uh, what? That does not compute. Either it's work, or it is not work (and I don't respond to anything, and don't get contacted in the first place)
If you're a skilled salaried worker the law doesn't really consider you to have work hours. Furthermore, you aren't required to be compensated for time you are on-call unless you are required to physically be present.
US labor laws are truly horrifying if you start asking yourself a few "what-ifs." The entire system is built on good faith.
"Salaried worker" over here means just that you're being paid for fixed, regular working hours - typically something like 37.5 or 40 hours per week. Anything on top of that is overtime, which needs to be compensated either in time off, or paid out.
On call rules also vary a lot by country, but typical it's something like being paid 20-25% of your regular hourly wage while on call, with overtime pay when you're taking a call.
I'll never forget at my first job once I moved to Europe, boss reminded me to take my vacation days. "Yeah, I'm hourly, not salary, what vacation days?"
Yes, holiday pay/leave is accrued for casual hourly workers too, by law.
That said, when I switched to salary, off in lieu is a sticky loophole, not sure if it was legal but one place would wipe any leftover OIL on 31 Dec with no payout, so it was on you to take it, which wasn't always possible (pay and time off is better, but work/life balance can be just as F-ed in Europe).
Yes, holidays can, by law, be reset on Jan 1st.
However, the company needs to have reminded you that it will, and also allow you to actually take the time off.
If you have 30 days on December 1st, then they need to allow you to either take the days forward into the year or take it in December.
We have salary exempt and salary non-exempt in the US. The exempt part being overtime pay.
Salary exempt would be jobs like managers who may have to work outside of normal hours to ensure continuity of the business. Such as making arrangements for sick workers.calling out.
Salary non-exempt are for positions in which they are paid a set work week but their function does not have unplanned work outside of their normal hours. So things like HR or accounting may be paid salary, but there really is no reason for something to come up outside of their work day. These people should be clocking in and out or at least capturing their time in some manner, because if they do end up working greater than 40 hours a week they are entitled to overtime pay.
I work in engineering. Every job I’ve ever had has been overtime exempt. Shit sucks.
Then I guess a few companies I've worked for are breaking the law... Go figure. Our non exempt employees wouldn't get overtime, they just worked for free if the were needed to work longer hours... Yay murica... Coincidentally those companies didn't have their salaried employees clock in or out
Nominally in power. In reality Congress is deadlocked and has been since his term started,and the USSC has aggressively blocked just about everything he has attempted via executive orders.
We need a lot more center left democrats in office, at the state and federal level, to get any significant reforms passed. That also means getting the geriatric Clinton era neoliberal democrats out of office.
I've worked in companies with a presence in various European countries over my career. Whether or not everyone takes Summer leave at the same time very much depends on the company, and the country. I specifically remember working with a Finnish contractor firm who planned to have no billable time available at all in August, from anyone. But our offices in France and elsewhere never fully shut down in August, they were just very lightly staffed. Everyone took some multi-week summer holiday, just not the whole place at once.
It's not just summer leave, either. There are people all over the world having kids and going out on maternity (or even paternity!) leave for months at a time. When my wife and I had our kids in the US, I didn't get any extra paternity leave, and just used saved-up PTO. I particularly remember that my wife had to stay in the hospital for a bit after my first kid was born, so the two weeks I had saved up flew by in a flash. I recall my boss strongly encouraging me to dial in to a conference call on that last PTO day, and when I did his boss lashed into me for taking so much time off. I started sending out resumes shortly after.
On the other hand, when the Europeans I worked with later got their summer or parental leave, their Project Managers just dealt with it, and if it meant their schedules had to slip, they slipped, no temper tantrums required. And I think that is the key difference. American bosses and PMs are much more likely to get away with assigning blame for schedule slips downward, perhaps because not as many people are unionized.
Just an anecdote related to the first part of what you said: I'm in the US, PTO season seems to be December at my company. Both because some portion of people's PTO hours will expire at the end of the year, and obviously because of being adjacent to Christmas and new year.
Depending on the country, there aren't that many people in unions. Most countries in the EU (not Europe in general) have laws that protect the workers better than workers in the USA. The result is a different work culture.
Which is often still the result of strong union actions in the past, even if only 20 or 30 % are currently unionised.
Living in EU, mid thirties, full time office job getting about 33 days off per year all together. Max 4 weeks in a row tho, and must match schedules with colleagues so all keeps on running, no full closing of offices. The older you get, the more vacation days you get. Older colleagues complain they have too much holidays...
I'm on the UK and taking paternity leave in December. By using some of my holiday allowance plus a Christmas shutdown I'm turning my 4 week paternity leave into 8 weeks off in total. It's hardly a holiday (seeing as we'll be lookin after a newborn and my other half will be recovering from a c-section/childbirth) but god-damn I am looking forward to two months of just focusing on mu family.
I am truly sorry that you are stuck in this awful situation. The system (or large parts of it) are designed like this. Keeps people in check. As an European, I find it baffling. Not everything is prefect here, far from it. I'm dealing with chronic health issues myself and I probably wouldn't survive the US.
There is nothing I can do to help you, but I emphasize with your situation and hope, that you can rest soon!
Probably not what you wanted to hear or see, but this is why managers are there. Exactly why you said the boss of the manager is an ass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnsRU3JJ_rs
Or were part of the base so trained as to kneejerk into thinking that sounds like "Communism".
In Germany, you get at least 28 days of holidays per year. Company even has to budget for them, so if you don't take them, it creates a huge headache for them in regards to finalizing their yearly results because they might have to keep money back. Sorry, I don't have the correct economical term, in German it is a Rückstellung. So there is a very high insentive to get all of your people to take their holidays, because otherwise it's a pain in the ass and will delay everything.
My company has this and just about everyone I work with utilizes the unlimited time off. Most people land in the 5-6 weeks of vacation a year + sick + personal business + holidays.
There are the few who make work their hobby too, but you can't do anything for those people IMO
Attending funerals, births etc aren't really holidays
I don't know about that. Depends on who died...
A lot of the time the difference is in how much notice you need to give work before taking the time off.
Sometimes they are treated different for expirations as well. For example, accrued vacation time usually has to be paid if you leave, might have some or all rollover to the be next year, while other types of time off are more likely use it or lose it
Personal business is for things that need to be done touring business hours but aren't vacation. Things like doctors appointments, meeting a service person to fix something at your home, or some delivery that requires you be home. Those kind of things
Research shows that people with unlimited time off take fewer days than people with set amount of time off.
I am definitely an outlier here. We have unlimited PTO and 98% of our workforce is in the US so most people never take more than three or four days at a time. And often end up at the end of the year having taken less PTO than they would have as a regular hourly worker.
But not me... I'll take 3 weeks at a time if I have plans. They can fire me if they want. I have a nice 3 months worth of severance written into my contract if they are the ones who terminate it.
That would give me a month more of break and then 2 months to find a job.
I know this isn't possible for everyone. But if more people stood up for themselves, even within the confines of these contracts, we would all be better off as management and executive get used to it over time.
It can be to limit how much vacation time the company has to pay out on separation, or to limit how much "liability" for vacation pay they have on the books at any given time. If your employees get 5 days of vacation a year, use it or lose it, you don't have to deal with someone who (the horror!) has built up 2 weeks and wants to use it all at once.
There are no state or federal laws that give employees a right to paid vacation time. Only 10 states require the company to pay out unused vacation time when you leave (CA, CO, IL, IN, LA, MA, ME, ND, NE, RI). In most of those states, use it or lose it policies are illegal. Everywhere else, the company policy basically decides if it gets paid out or not.
I have unlimited PTO, and it's a total scam. I'm a contractor, and contracts have required hours within required time-frames. These time-frames don't have margin for taking off a couple weeks at a time. Any time you take off, has to be made up, so it's not really time off
If I'm stuck in the USA, I'm gonna find an unlimited time of job and actually use that benefit like Europeans. Fuck American work culture.
If you get such a contract, make sure to read it closely. I had it once, phrased more like “there is no policy restricting time off”. It’s really up to your manager and it means there is an invisible limit that may be different for everyone, you won’t know about until you hit it.
In my case, I had a good manager, but sure enough, got dinged after taking off two weeks in the year (the worst part was no actual vacation but individual days off for kid’s appointments). I much prefer an actual limit, because then you can take it
Yeah because it’s a fucking scam who’s primary purpose is to eliminate pto liability from their accounting. It’s the equivalent of the 401k scam that eliminated corporate pension plans as a standard benefit.
For some that's true.
But we undergo a great deal of brainwashing. Unions are demonized, billionaires lionized, puritanical (insane) work ethic lauded, anything less than that vilified, etc.
Attempts at unionization are aggressively subverted and crushed by large corpos.
And most people are given just enough to not want to risk it all to get a bit more.
It will be a while, yet, before US culture shifts enough that more people side with unions, join unions, and build critical mass. Although, younger generations seem to be more aware of the anti-labor BS more than my gen (x) was at a similar age.
Because they will think of someone else who "doesn't deserve it" getting it and mald.
Mald?
portmanteau of mad and go bald
be so mad they go bald
That sounds pretty mad!
Something, something socialism is bad.
"In 2020, there were a total 5,775,258 U.S. firms in all sectors. They employed about 129,363,644 workers and had total annual payroll of $7.3 trillion."
US population per that census: 331,449,281.
For simplification, let's assume one business owner per business. Then it's only 1.74243% of Americans that own a business. Even with inclusion of additional owners for businesses, you aren't going to get anywhere near that 34%, as that would be 112,692,756 people.
In short, realistically the 34% are not business owners, and instead are the propagandized proletariat who fight against their own best interest in favor of capital (conservatives and fascists).
This is what you are looking for:
Breakdown of the size/ # employees per business.
There are 4.6 million businesses with 1-4 employees. 8,600 businesses with 1,000+ employees.
Per Google:
"Small businesses employ 61.7 million people in the United States, which is 46.4% of all US employees. This means that almost half of all Americans work at a small business. Small businesses are defined as independent businesses with fewer than 500 employees. They make up 99.9% of all US businesses."
It's likely that the average business has a lot more than one owner per business. Most would have multiple shareholders, whether that's husband and wife businesses, or a small firm of several partners. Plus you also need to add in shareholders, etc. Though it's also true that one person can own multiple, and presumably the survey didn't let the same person answer twice, so maybe the 1:1 assumption is ok.
But even so, isn't that figure super low? Here in New Zealand, we have about 550,000 small businesses (less than 20 employees, including self-employed), which if there were one owner per business would make this 10% of businesses.
I'd also add that people who work in small businesses are also more likely to understand what a fine line there is between them having a job and the business going bust. This is especially true for places like hospitality, where margins are thin and businesses go bankrupt at a high rate. These employees may also think it's a bad idea, because they know their business can't afford it even if they are not the owners.
instead are the propagandized proletariat who fight against their own best interest
If you went out on the street and started talking to the average person, I think you'd find that it was difficult to find a person who wasn't voting against their own interests (other than those that do not vote at all).
some people are that bad of workalohics. never take time off and think others who do are weak
Who are the other 34%?? Who is like "yeah idk a consecutive 30 days off every summer actually, legitimately sounds BAD to me"?
European here. Like me, many people from the poorer european countries don't have any place to go on vacations in august. Everything is expensive and there's always a rush to booking. For someone who doesn't have a "family summer house" and can't afford to rent a place in august, mandatory august vacations (like it's usual here) is just a waste of vacations. Too hot and no place cool to go. Also, august is typically the month where everything is flooded with small children. If you're not too fond of that either, then august is really the worst month to be on vacations. ALSO, it's lovely to work in august, because usually your workplace has AC and most of your colleagues are hundreds of kms away, trying to buy a melted ice-cream for 40min in a crowded beach.
Eh I ignored that one because I don't know how to respond. I live in the south (of the United States) in an attic apartment. With my ac I can't get it below 80 degrees fahrenheit inside and if I don't turn the ac on it is well above ambient temperature, 100 plus degrees.
I know that AC should be a luxury but it is quickly becoming a requirement. I don't know how to help on that front
Uh, lots actually. People who self identify with work, and the shitty management class who are workaholics.
Also, the self employed and small business owner who never gets vacation time.
Three possibilities. a) people who bought into the propaganda that being exploited by your employer means you're more dedicated. b) the temporarily embarrassed millionaire effect. They're willing to take the exploitation on the off chance they might be the one exploiting people in the future. c) they already are the ones exploiting people.
There's also people that recognize that a "summers off" program like this wouldn't affect significant portions of the workforce. Retail and dining workers wouldn't get this time off. Medical workers wouldn't get this time off. Package handlers wouldn't get this time off.
The divide between "work-from-home" and "essential" and those who got laid off completely during the pandemic opened a lot of eyes to how unfair different types of employment are. I can see plenty of workers saying they don't want white collar office jockeys taking yet another advantage that service workers will never have access to.
They have dropped that "take a month off" thing like it's some crazy regular thing that happens.
I don't know about the rest of Europe, but in the UK you normally get 25 to 30 days of Annual Leave, companies often give extra days for long term or exceptional service, some have salary sacrifice options to buy more. Where I work you can even win some in charity raffles. The expectation is that you book them in advance with your boss when you want to use them.
If you want to save it all and take a month off then so long as the boss is okay with it, then off you go. But you won't have any leave days for the rest of the year.
That's double the amount of time off I have here in the U.S.
And I only get a week of paid sick days, which I've already used up due to an illness which hasn't even been properly diagnosed yet.
I even have to make up time if I go to the doctor.
In the UK the government mandates that your employer pay you whats called statutory sick pay for up to 28 week should the illness require it, which is a minimum of £109 a week.
In addition, your continued employment by the company is protected and they cannot fire you for being sick.
In reality the company will often support staff members for much longer if needed. That's just how things are expected to be. I've had a member of my team go on very long term sick with leukemia and he was supported by the company for over 4 years while he was in and out of hospital, letting him work part time and from home when he needed to, at his discretion.
Expectations on companies here and the protections offered to worked in regards to thier employment and unfair dismissal situations puts the "land off the free" to shame
Not surprised. I would honestly move there tomorrow (my father was English and I was born before the 1980s cutoff, so I could get citizenship), but I don't want to abandon my dogs.
Yep - it’s a tired misconception I first encountered working for an American 20 odd years ago.
While it’s true that it’s difficult to get much out of France Spain and especially Italy in august - it’s because it’s holiday season - not because everyone is gone for a whole month
25 days off is 5 weeks (because days off would only be the work days.) That's over a month.
Most positions in the US seem to give 10 days of annual leave a year. Some may also include sick pay as well.
It’s even more than 5 weeks if you take days off adjacent to bank holidays. One can easily stretch it to 6+ in many countries.
Do you get paid during your month off?
Of course.
In Finland you get paid 1.5x your normal monthly salary in the month you are in vacation. History of it is that to ensure you continue working after the vacation.
Edit: it is not in the law, it is just something that unions have negotiated
25 to 30 days of annual leave is unheard of in the US. And it translates to 5-6 weeks, which is well over a month. It's common in a lot of European countries to take 4 of those weeks off in a single continuous summer break, usually August (some prefer July to avoid the August crowds). Yes, there's a misconception that everyone in Europe takes August off, it's ultimately up to each individual how they allocate their days off, but there are companies that do assume everyone will take August off and all but shut down during that month.
Yeah, I’m also from the UK and not sure where tf this “August off” thing is from, whether it’s something other European countries do.
People usually take 1-2 weeks off at a time for a holiday then the odd day here and there, a month is ridiculous.
I was gonna say that you’d burn out if you used up an entire month at once, but I guess Americans would be used to that kind of shit anyway.
Here in Germany taking 3 consecutive weeks off is pretty normal, for me that's also the maximum that I can take off in a row without jumping through additional administrative hoops. A whole month isn't normal, but it could certainly be arranged
Like so many things in the minds of Americans, when they think of social benefits in Europe, they think of Sweden.
In Sweden it is actually not unusual to take 4 full weeks off every year in Summer. Especially if you have kids. Can be even 6 weeks for some years if you still got enough parental leave to take. And that is in addition to time off around Christmas, although then maybe not more than 1 1/2 weeks or so.
I don't think its a Federal requirement to offer employees any vacation or sick leave in the US. For many office jobs you have to earn leave time over the course of months or years - it's not unheard of to have zero leave time the first six months of employment.
Same in France.
If you think voting will get you out of this, my american friend, you are wrong. You need a revolution.
I agree with everything that you just said. But revolutions are not led by a single individual, but by organizing collectivelly. I simplified my reply to your original post, and I apologize for that. What I originally meant was that voting will not change anything. You need radical change. And yes, that will shed blood. But houseless people, minorities, they are already bleeding. The alternative is just to vote? To go to marches? Protest?
Nah, organization and fight against capital.
I’m gonna assume the remaining 33% prefer to have a vacation other than summertime.
German here: I have yet to witness these "European-style" vacations mentioned in the post title.
Most workplaces seem to frown at people taking >2 consecutive weeks of vacation, esp. if they don't have kids and do it in main travel season / during school holidays. Handing in ~3 weeks of holidays often at least needs some kind of explanation to the team-lead, e.g. "I have school kids who have their summer holidays and we need to keep them busy until school starts again."
I have yet to see a single company going easy on someone saying "I'll be off all of August KTHXBYE".
I work in IT for a major telecom provider in Scandinavia, and almost everyone takes 3 weeks summer vacation, mostly at the same time.
Management recommends taking as much as possible over the summer, as we have a 5-6 week "slow period" when people's 3 weeks don't align.
Other than that, it's common to just take the rest during other school holidays.
We get 6 weeks by default and earn our way up to 7 weeks after 5 years.
German here as well - this hasn't been an issue in any company I've worked so far, all didn't have an issue with 3+ weeks.
I'm glad to hear it's not an issue in your experience / industry.
Which gets into an entirely separate (though related) issue, where workers with children get benefits and accommodations that childless workers don't.
Sometimes it's overt and blatant like in your case, others, it's more limited to interactions and relationships.
A few jobs ago, I worked in a small office where the owner was good about approving PTO, but didn't want more than one person in any given dept out at the same time (ridiculous, but that's how he was).
I planned a vacation of a long weekend one summer and got my PTO approved in like February for this long weekend in June.
Literally 3 weeks before, this lady I worked with tells me that I "need to reschedule my PTO".
After looking into it, I learn that what's really going on is that she wanted to take a week long vacation with her kids since they'd be off for the summer, and one of my days overlapped with the week she wanted to take.
I refused, saying that my friends and I had already made arrangements.
And then she blew it up, in the office in front of everyone, and told me how I was being so rude and mean and inconsiderate, that I could go and do things whenever I liked because I didn't have kids...and that I "just didn't get it" and could never possibly understand how hard her life was because I didn't have kids.
I assumed that my boss and other coworkers would see how ridiculous she was, but while they mostly kept quiet, the ones who did speak up actually did think I was being unreasonable for not canceling my vacation to trade with her, seeing my plans as less than hers, just because she had kids.
I learned to get comfortable with coworkers thinking I was an asshole, though, and enjoyed every moment of that getaway.
The ideal baseline of all workers should be plenty adequate for everyone, regardless of marital status.
I think it really depends on the place you're working. My company honestly encourages us to take all of our leave in one chunk, because it's easier to plan with. At least you should take one week at a time. I personally don't like it though. I like looking forward to having a few days off every month. Having a whole month off and then working troughout the year is not for me.
I work in the automotive industry in the US, but we regularly interact with German suppliers (software and hardware). In my experience, in August especially it seems like half of their office is just out the entire month. I'm sure there's tons of industries where that isn't the case, though.
Here in England there's a guy I work with who's taking six months off soon to go to Thailand. Thing is, we're working for the local authority and they're pretty good about holidays and sick pay because the wages aren't very competitive and they need to retain staff.
Lol as an American I feel uncomfortable putting in more than 2 consecutive DAYS in a row and I'm salaried, not a service worker or anything. I can't even imagine having 2 weeks off. I've only been able to manage that once in my adult life during one of my transitions to a new company.
It’s sad. The real issue is an odd application of American capitalism and, believe it or not, unions. Yes, those same people that take credit for the 40 hour workweek and weekends prevented guaranteed vacation benefits.
Back in the New Deal when so many benefits were being codified, the unions began lobbying against going too far. The reason was their fear that if employers were forced by law to offer too good of benefits, then people would have no reason to join a union.
Of course, union membership has since collapsed, so we are now all stuck with the fallout and employers thinking 2-3 weeks of PTO is somehow enough. And never mind that as it turns out, European nations generally have higher union membership anyway.
Here is a source: https://www.npr.org/...
The reason we have vacation time is unions. The thing about a minimum pay in law is not needed here as everything needs to be bargained for. Even if you yourself is not a union member , the bargains are for all employees. Memberships are higher here but on the down in many places , especially if you consider the time before today's regulations.
And it shows in how weak the union are in some places. Everything gain is always under attack.
The only way for you to get same benefits as we have is throug the union.
Perhaps in Europe, unions pushed for mandatory vacation laws. But listen to my link. They pushed against it here. Not that I am discouraging unions. I’m just pointing out how greed effects everything in the US.
It's mind boggling that there's no minimum PTO law in the US
As an American, I want that sweet sweet Netherlands lifestyle so bad in the US.
My cousins from Holland just came to Canada for a 6 week vacation. Can't imagine just up and leaving work for 6 weeks in a row. Would be great, but also the workplace would probably fall apart lol.
Dutchie here; while this certainly happens, it's not the norm at all. Everyone working full time in the Netherlands gets a minimum of 20 paid days off per year. Many companies increase this to 25-ish days, with some outliers going up to 40+. At my company, taking >2 weeks has to be requested far in advance and planned around. If my prolonged leave would cause the workplace to fall apart, it wouldn't get approved.
That said, yea it's definitely better here in Europe regarding vacations :)
Of course, if one employee being away would cause a company to fall apart, us Dutch would conclude management is completely incompetent, and tell them that.
A 3 week vacation is pretty normal, here. But we do plan those ahead. That means you might not be able to take it on the specific dates you have in mind. But not that you won't be able to take it!
if one employee being away would cause a company to fall apart, us Dutch would conclude management is completely incompetent, and tell them that
Here in the US, some people say they can't take time off like they're proud of it somehow. Maybe it's just Stockholm syndrome.
I took a week off and saw emails upon my return that they almost called me about a security issue, but implemented alternative mitigations.
Jokes on them, I would not have answered. It's not my fault that I'm a single point of failure in the org. I don't roll over and take that shit.
I grew up in the US North, and now live in the US midAtlantic South, and I've given up going outside for most of the summer. Getting drenched with sweat in unseasonably cool weather because the humidity is 99% and mosquitoes that come out in full sunlight any time of day and grass with chiggers that want to make me shred off my skin almost the entire year 'round is enough to make me really wish I had the scratch to be a snow-bird.
Agreed, I was on vacation earlier this month for a couple weeks since it was the only time that made sense with my work schedule. It was just brutally expensive to stay anywhere because things were booked up.
We don't specify when you go on vacation in Europe it's just 5 weeks of paid time off
I think they mean 5-7 weeks paid time off in total. Mainly because a 3 week long vacation for someone in the US isn't just problematic, for most it's a literal impossibility. Not now, not ever. So suggesting 5+ weeks straight isn't even on someone's radar if they are in the US.
From what I've seen 5-7 is still a bit high for European countries as an average (someone correct me if my experience is too limited to be correct). But the difference is that sick leave policies seem to be much more employee friendly. In the US it is most common that PTO and sick leave are combined into a single bucket. If you have 4 weeks of PTO and are sick for 3 weeks, sorry you only have 1 week to take vacation.
So even given equal PTO buckets, usually the effective number is less for someone in the US. Our work culture sucks here.
Having a 'sick leave' limit is just incredibly weird. As if you could just stop being sick when the time runs out!
I mean, we do get a company/regulatory doctor assigned if we're sick for a longer period of time, and after, like, a year you will go to a reduced insured income. But counting it as if it were discretionary does not make sense.
A lot of people seem to be confused by the "entire month of August off" thing, there is a bit of background to that, namely that factories shut down production in August for 2, sometimes 3 weeks. I'm not sure if this is a general thing, but all the factories that I worked with across Europe were doing this.
Some of it comes from heavy industry, with the time of machinery that you just don’t turn off and on . The big steel makers for example, would only stop the furnace for the summer break (last week of July first week of august). And Christmas. Holiday was mandated at that time - known as the “factory weeks”
There are industries that do this in the US too, such as car manufacturing. However even then, the plant is shut down for a week or two, and you are required to take your vacation during this period. …. Except of course the people going in to do all the plant maintenance, who are prohibited from vacation during that period
Why would they force you to pick August?
Here vacation is most commonly from mid July to mid August, but some people obviously have it earlier or later out of choice or necessity.
Manuy jobs can't be completely unmanned for 1+ months so vacations are often spread out slightly if possible.
Many companies in Europe encourage you to take in August because the work is less in some regions and the majority take them during August.
They can't pick all your annual days. But sometimes like 50% of them.
I generally try to take mine during November or March.
Sometimes December because I have to pick 3 days between Christmas and New Year as policy.
I'm not a fan of companies picking any of my time off.
"This office shuts down over the Christmas/New Year period, so don't come in, take your holidays. Oh but there's a job that needs to be done on the 28th so you'll need to come in for that."
Ummm... It's not really my holiday if I don't have control over it. What you're describing there isn't even leave without pay. It's just a period of no work.
Yeah me neither. Which is why I'm OK with my current contract which blocks only 3 out of 23/24~ paid time off on December, as a general rule.
In my previous company it was hassle the process to ask for not taking any time off in August (or around August).
I'm European and I have 1 month across all the year. I took 1 week during spring, 1 week in July, 1 week in August and I have another week for the rest of the year.
I couldn't say "hey, I won't show up during the whole month".
I have, what most in the U.S. would consider, a very generous PTO allotment (accrues at 19.5 hrs per month) and I could not even fathom asking for an entire month off at a time. Who are these 34%?? Crap wait, I think I just realized. 🤦
Lol, business literally won't fail if someone being gone. And anyway, you could literally phone in or do a teams meeting for that one super critical meeting if you took a month off.
Somehow I doubt those 66% of Americans will bother voting for the people and parties that would make this happen though.
Because neither party would? The red koolaide people would dismiss this idea immediately, because it's clearly scary communism. The blue koolaide people would pretend to support it while asking for your votes, then proceed to conveniently forget about it entirely, or pretend to try to do it while also receiving lobbying money from nearly every corporation and anti-workers-union type organization.
The people that would support this are not part of either party.
Thank you, you've rather made my point for me by erroneously assuming I was referring to either of those two parties
I don't doubt it, but our passion for talking about the presidency has to turn into a passion for voting for local offices, too. The governor, representatives, and most key to this issue - unions. One must imagine the Libs unhappy.
Or, if you are a rail worker, more than one day off a month. Not, one day plus weekends, mind you, one day period.
That's just criminal. They need to hire more. The railroads have also been removing rail from primary corridor despite increasing freight traffic. Super dumb. The Industry will implode.
Yeah good luck with that. In the US capitalism is first and last, it's god, it determines everything. Votes vote against their own interests because capitalism. Way too many religious persons see Jesus more like a capitalistic investor than the socialist heretic he was. If the rich and greedy can no longer squeeze out the poor and vulnerable then america stops being America.
Never going to happen
And the other 33% are either nativists or bootlickers
If you're going for a whole month off, why August, the hottest, shittiest month of the year?
If you're an American, no, you probably can't afford to go somewhere nicer.
Old buildings are hard to retrofit a modern central air AC system into, and Europe has a lot of old buildings. Also, from an American viewpoint, Europe is much higher in latitude that the USA, so it's like Canadian weather which is usually believed to be cooler. The USA is more of in line with middle eastern latitude
While I don't know for most of Europe, almost everywhere I've been in Northern Europe has had a decent chunk of home have Inverter Heat Pumps installed. Don't really ever see buildings retrofit a central AC system when separate heat pumps per unit do the job.
Everyone crowding all the public places with their shrieking banshees at the same time just makes the idea even less appealing. I'd almost rather be at work than have to spend my vacation time around that.
I mean, I'd prefer to just have enough leave to actually take a month off when I want to take it off, rather than being told my office is closing for one specific month. Saying you don't want to have a forced vacation time with a million kids doesn't mean you buy in to the bullshit system in the US.
There are more than two seasons, and the others are both far more tolerable than summer or winter.
Sure, but we're talking specifically about the US. August is typically the hottest time of year in essentialy every part of the country, aside from maybe Hawaii and San Diego, where the weather barely changes.
I enjoy taking 4-6 weeks off when it is the hottest here in Europe, and going to the south of New Zealand for a nice holiday in cold temperatures. Flights are also surprisingly affordable when you plan it 6+ months in advance!
Most Americans can't afford to vacation in another state, let alone another hemisphere.
You know that stereotype you guys have about Americans being untravelled and ignorant of other cultures? Well, it's accurate, but it's not because we're arrogant or don't give a shit; it's because 2/3 of us live paycheck to paycheck. The thought of vacationing overseas is absurd and fantastical when you're too busy worrying about the fact that you can't save enough to retire or afford to get your car fixed when it breaks down and gets you fired for missing work because you used both of your sick days last month when you were violently ill, which, by the way, you didn't get treatment for because it costs too much and your insurance only partially covers it.
October by far. Still warm enough to do stuff, cool enough that the heat doesn't make me want to kill myself, and the trees don't look barren and depressing like they do for most of spring and later in the fall.
Team leader from Germany here: This might oversell European holiday-regulations a fair bit here. Not one of the people in my team will get one whole month off in summer. How's that supposed to work? I can spare two people on holiday at any given time, So if all of my 13 workers want to have a week or two in July/August/September, none of them can have more than three weeks, and you'd have to be lucky for 3 weeks to align with the other's wishes. Otherwise, two weeks is realistic.
2 weeks is still exceptional. 2 weeks off at the same time happens in the US, but it’s rare.
I’ve found most people in the US use PTO to have a 4-day weekend when a national holiday is also occurring.
Also team leader in Germany here. I'm currently on a three week vacation. Two members of my team take 4 consecutive weeks of vacation each. There are only 8 people in my team so impact of one person missing is even greater. There are weeks when only half the team is not on vacation. Our labour agreement doesn't even allow us to deny vacation requests. We just "simply" plan ahead and don't take on projects we can't handle during that time. So it highly depends on circumstances whether this is possible, it's definitely not generalizable.
Well, in Sweden the employer is required by law to offer at least four weeks of continuous vacation during the summer break.
So there are obviously differences within the Union is what I'm saying I guess.
I'm partial to May. More winter vacation just means rain and no sun. I'd rather travel when it's cool and sunny.
I’m glad to be getting 15 days of PTO to spend when I’d like (with permission) starting next July. Currently I’m at 10 and it feels a little restrictive. I think 15 sounds decent, but 30 days worth of PTO to spend would be just lovely. I too would also take a 32 hour work week and stay at my 15 days off, tho. Easy money lol
I remember, few years back I had conversation about PTO with American. It blew his mind when I told him that I took two weeks PTO without any problem.
So nearly 34% of Americans don't support having workers get vacation time. Huh, wonder who those 34% are...
Small business owners, managers, people worried that they will end up picking the slack from their coworkers, people with jobs that pay less but have large amounts of vacation time, the retired who don't benefit but definitely lose, and of course bootlickers.
With the number of billionaires Wall Street is making, we can afford this
The US company I work for offers unlimited vacation whch is a means for a company to avoid the financial liability of an entitlement to leave. That is illegal in Canada so for Candian employees we have unlimited vacation with a minimum of four weeks.
"Unlimited PTO" is just a scheme for companies to not have to keep track of PTO owed to the employee (and not have to pay unused days out when they leave). It's generally a raw deal for the employee.
In a company with traditional PTO, an employee could save up 4 weeks, and with adequate planning, take it all at once, even in the US. Their manager might grouse if it is near a key deadline, but if the employee has the time banked up it will generally get accepted. But in a company with unlimited PTO, the employee doesn't have that documented evidence that they have been saving PTO, and the manager has more leeway to reject the request if it is at an inconvenient time.
Damn, I only took half of August off like a sucker. In Germany we also have fixed school holidays which are in August in some states, and cannot move them. Most parents then take 2-3 weeks off in the summer, others hoard their leave and are forced to take it in a big chunk before the company gets in trouble.
Afaik one month vacations are something out of the norm in Europe, but sure there's some countries that allow that, just don't come in with your good old fashioned American uninformed claims and expect it to be the norm. One week to two week vacations are more common afaik.
Three weeks is easy too, especially over Christmas (I do 3 weeks every year and have done so in 5 different companies so far).
I also had a colleague once who built up too much vacation days (we get pestered about using them by management), so he took a whole month off and went to Australia.
The thing is: Every day you don't take goes over into the next year, but the company has to build reserves for this. Because if you leave the company they have to pay you out that vacation day (if you don't use it up before leaving). So if you have 300 employees and each one has 5 days over at the end of the year, that's around 12000 hours you have to be prepared to pay out.
So HR and your manager usually pushes you to actually use up your vacation days each year (which is a good thing) :)
We want it, but won't take the necessary steps to procure it.
Switch "companies should adopt" for "the federal government should mandate" and you might be a bit closer to what you need.
Expecting companies in the US to voluntarily make your life better is a hiding to nothing.
Had no idea American's couldn't do that 😲 No wonder they don't travel!
I don’t think capitalism would ever allow less than 365 days of work a year in many companies. People at the top only see one thing, and it’s money incase it wasn’t obvious. So less production and less money at face value are not something they would entertain.
The cool thing is that humans tend to be more productive when mentally well adjusted so if you're not doing a mindless 'cattle' job like callcenter support vacation days are in the interest of even the most heartless CEOs. If they're aware of it is another question.
The Communists of the USSR didn't like vacation time, but accepted it as necessary for workers to reset and return to work refreshed.
They believed that once their systems were perfected vacation would become unnecessary and workers could work all year without breaks.
It's pretty terrifying that there are still people in leadership positions who haven't accepted these fundamental facts of work!
I don’t think it is capitalism that is causing that. It is the idea of maximising shareholder value that the American economist Milton Freedman injected into the minds of political and corporate America.
I live in a capitalist country with, in law codified, employee protections including a minimum of paid time off. In addition to that, a strong union that keeps companies in check.
Capitalism works if the rules balance the power of the workers and the capitalist accordingly. But Freedman had other ideas and those are bad for everyone except a few rich guys.
The problematic thing is that the capital has the high ground in capitalism.. Therefore it always tries to get those pesky rules removed by just threatening politicians through taking away jobs and industry to other countries with lesser worker rights for example.
I don’t agree ‘it has the high ground’. It is given it the high ground. Capitalism is all about high risk that can lead to high reward. If the rules are changed to low risk will always result in high reward for a few individuals, you end up in a system like this.
However, the system only works when the democratic systems are sound, and let’s be frank here, the democratic systems of the USA are nowhere near sound. The fact that, what you rightly addressed in your post, capital has more influence in politics than votes have, is a red flag.
So, don’t blame capitalism if it is your political system that is at fault. Because if you don’t fix that, no other economic system will function accordingly.
Have a look into how those laws came to be :-)
Tbh a good percentage of Americans would turn down a million dollars if it meant minorities didn't get it.
I came here hoping somecritter had asked what "OOO" is. Nocritter has, so I've decided that it must mean "Object-Oriented Overtime."
(Okay, I looked it up and it seems to be "out of office" but that's not as funny)
"OOO"?
There's an official EU article here that states that "staff has the right to at least 4 weeks of paid holidays per year" in all 27 member countries. Are you not from one of those countries or are you being messed around by your employer?
Either way, when you compare it to America where people get a measly 11 days paid time off average, there is a hell of a lot to say about the European way of life.
That sounds like it includes holidays too, it's not just vacation days you can take whenever you want.
But agreed, it's still better than 11 days, but it's not "anyone can just leave for a month and half".
I think the point is that it’s possible, in theory, maybe depending on your employer. But you get close to that amount of vacation time in total. The majority of Americans don’t get more than two weeks for the entire year, and many get none at all, only sick time. Many Americans can’t even take just two consecutive weeks off any time of the year.
I don't get the whole month of August off on paid vacation. That's a straight-faced lie.
You not getting vacation doesn't mean it's not common for others. Definitely common to get a month of vacation in summer in Romania, mandatory in Sweden, and based on comments here it's common in other countries too.
Also, even if you don't use your time off to get a full month of vacation, it is a fact that most of European countries mandate a minimum amount of annual paid time off that's more than double of what most get in the US.
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Approximately 50% of voters will vote for a political party that views any such reform as communism.
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