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.
Approximately 50% of voters will vote for a political party that views any such reform as communism.
It’s actually quite a bit less than 50%, but their votes have a bigger impact because of a broken system.
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.
We’re heading through a dry county, and for political reasons it’s a very long, narrow county. So I cannot serve alcohol until we’re through.
-King of the Hill
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
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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.
We don’t have these things because 50% of the population is dumb as bricks and is voting against their own interest.
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.
Hey man if there’s one thing the defunded schools taught me, it’s that America is the greatest country in the universe.
So I stood up and told that teaching lady, “the only letters I need to know are U, S, and A!”
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.
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
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.
We have to have voting mail in and at the booths as federally mandated. Washington State and quite a few others do this and we get a pamphlet that lists each candidate, their website, a pic and their policies. This should be the bare minimum for every state.
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.
They had universal healthcare in Hawaii? Where dd it go? I’ve never heard of that.
Per Google AI:
Hawaii is the only state to have implemented near-universal health insurance. The Hawaii Prepaid Health Care Act, enacted in 1974, requires most employers to offer employees group health insurance. Hawaii does not have a specific law requiring individuals to have health insurance coverage.
Hawaii is ranked #1 in the country for overall health and public health. According to U.S. News & World Report, Hawaii is the top state for healthcare. The ranking is based on 71 metrics across eight categories, including healthcare, education, and economy.
The average health insurance cost in Hawaii is $421 per month for a 40-year-old across all plan tiers. The cheapest Silver health plan in every county in Hawaii is KP HI Silver 4000/45 from Kaiser Permanente. Individuals can get insurance directly from HMSA or through the federal health insurance marketplace at HealthCare.gov. Depending on your financial situation, you may be eligible for financial help, which is only available through the federal marketplace.
– My family over there tells me it’s great.
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
There is no party of red and party of blue. It’s all a single party of green. And it’s not named after the color of trees.
Edit: Green is the color of money.
Why green?
the color of …grass?
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.
Conservatism is literally, don’t change anything.
Not true. They also like regression.
Make America like the 1950s.
I’ll take the higher tax rates on the highest brackets from the 1950s, but I’d rather do without the racism.
MAke America Tax the Rich Again.
Because the American Oligarchy do nothing to actually improve the lives of the average person and deflect, blame, and fear monger against the other party to distract from their own corruption. It’s both sides of the political spectrum in this country and it’s getting pretty old.
Racism and bigotry are a hell of a drug.
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everyone wants it when you survey people that want it
(not that i disagree)
Then don’t vote for Republicans.
30ish percent of Americans identify as Republican (depending on the poll), so these types of questions are always ~66% of Americans in support
But many independent voters who want these policies vote for Republicans. If they want these policies, voting for Republicans will not get them there.
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These things require 60 votes in the Senate and approval in the House. Republicans are blocking them in both.
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.
Many types of workers in scandinavia is not as heavily unionized either. Perhaps the ones that are not, enjoy a form of herd immunity from worker abuse from the ones that are.
This is exactly why every worker should be supporting unions even if their industry doesn’t have one. Rising tides and all that.
There’s a lot of unionisation. Further, there’s industry-wide collective agreements, which pretty much do the herd immunity thing.
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.
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.
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34% of Americans responded “grind my body into the ground, capitalism daddy”
I don’t think they even responded, their mouth were probably full.
The other 34% of adults surveyed were middle management.
Or were part of the base so trained as to kneejerk into thinking that sounds like “Communism”.
Why do 34% of Americans not want paid time off work?
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.
some people are that bad of workalohics. never take time off and think others who do are weak
the myth of a meritocracy strikes again
I’m the kind of person that brings my work laptop on vacation and it’s because I love what I do, not because I think people who don’t do that 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.
Couldn’t you just stay home and fuck around and just not work?
You missed the part about having AC at work.
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.
As a self employed small business owner, “What are weekends and work hours?”
As an employee, “Couple weeks off sounds great!”
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.
“sounds like COMMUNISM to me for sure buddy !”
It’s not too surprising that a country that had a civil war over ‘employment laws’ is a bad place to work.
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I’m gonna assume the remaining 33% prefer to have a vacation other than summertime.
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.
Why not take the dogs with you, if that is „all“?
Well, I don’t know UK law, but generally that means putting the dogs in quarantine for months and I don’t want to do that to them.
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.
Cool, I get zero sick days and get paid a lump sum “vacation” bonus every year equivalent to one week’s salary.
I get no real paid time off otherwise
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.
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.
Paid sick leave, no, but your job is protected by FMLA.
Same in France.
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.
Parental leave? Lol
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It’s mind boggling that there’s no minimum PTO law in the US
Not when you remember that capitalism is the state religion.
Praise Cash, from whom all blessings flow.
There’s not a law because most professional jobs have PTO at level that would meet any mandatory minimum level.
So it would affect nothing for those jobs and be beneficial to others to have those minimums
What would you say the minimum would be?
In Denmark it’s 5 weeks, a lot (most?) get 1 week extra, some get more days every year they stay at the same employer, and a few get more (common in banking sector).
In the US, probably 2 as a minimum.
In Switzerland, on the other hand, we have turned down an additional two weeks of vacation with a majority of 67 % in 2012. Which leaves us with a meager 4 weeks.
Pain
