From a Center for Economic and Policy Research report:
“In the absence of government standards, almost one in four Americans have no paid vacation and no paid holidays. According to government survey data, the average worker in the private sector in the United States receives only about nine days of paid vacation and about six paid holidays per year.”
That paragraph alone is chock-full of reasons to be angry at how America treats its working folks. To get the full effect, check out this chart of how industrialized nations stack up in terms of vacation time. We all know that France gives its workers a lot more time off than we do, but how about Brazil? South Africa? Hell, even Vietnam mandates ten days’ vacation pay for full-time workers.
Now, the big question: how many days off does America require companies to provide?
Goose egg.
That’s right: the United States is the only industrialized nation in the world without a national minimum for vacation days. That means companies can work their employees year round — and do. One in four American workers have no paid vacation time. Sweden and Germany require workers to take 25 days off; Britain requires 20. The United States leaves vacation time up to companies — who, first and foremost, are in it for money.
Even worse — as per this CEPR report, which I’m drawing most of my information from — the paid leave American companies do provide is distributed unequally. While 9 in 10 high-wage workers (those who make more than $15/hour) have paid vacation and holiday time, only two-thirds of low-wage workers do. Moreover, low-wage workers who do get vacation time receive an average of four days less than high-wage workers.
This is yet another demonstration of why I trust governments more than corporations. Governments, at least in principle, are created by the people and for the people. Corporations, on the other hand, are created by profit and for profit.
Now, if only America would get hip to Lincoln (and the rest of the world) and stop working its people to death, I’d have a much easier time fighting to keep its government from perishing from the earth.
Genghis Philip
Gordon Levine
Personal example of how much nicer the government is to its employees than private companies:
As a (civilian) summer intern for the Navy, I was not a high-wage worker and I earned 1 day paid vacation and 1 day paid sick leave per month. It was fantastic.
In the job I just left, I was a high-wage worker according to the above specifics, and I earned 5 days of paid vacation per year, total. No sick leave. The amount of vacation would have doubled in my second year with the company, but still no sick leave no matter how much seniority.
Gelf,
Thanks for the back-up! It boggles the mind how corporations — which are presumably composed of people, to whom we try and teach morals — can exhaust their workers so thoroughly. Don’t they realize that we’re not a renewable resource, no matter what biology says?
Oh man, do I agree. I am constantly amazed at how far behind we are on these sort of issues.
Personally, I blame communism. Oh no – what I mean is, I think American’s intense, seething hatred for anything involving government meddling in corporate operations and working standards is a result of old Cold War era prejudices.
Luckily, I think thats going to crumble. Its only a matter of time before we get UHC of some form, at the very least. I just hope this sort of change happens before I’m using a walker.
I’d bet it stems from some sort of throwback to our Puritan past. I can’t think of another way to explain the fact that not only do companies expect this kind of slavish dedication, but the people that this hurts seem to take pride in it!
The Europeans that I work with are constantly appalled at the dismal amount of benefits and perks afforded even the most valuable of employees. To have less than a whole month of vacation per year, well, that’s just wrong.
You’re probably right about it being partly traditional, Jacob. I can think of another explanation for employees taking pride in getting screwed, though. What if they’ve convinced themselves that they’re proud of their shitty situation as a way of coping?
My fiancee — who is British — said, on reading this article, that we really need bank holidays. She couldn’t be more right.
I can point to one organization that unabashedly ignores the rights of it’s workers.
The metropolitan museum of art.
despite being a union position and “promising” 15 days vacation a year, employees are not allowed to even schedule vacation until after their first year working there. This in and of itself isn’t particularly huge, many companies don’t let you schedule vacation till after working for them for a good long time. What is big is that they black out any day more than 4 people take off and schedule vacation on the basis of seniority. I have met security guards who did not get 1 day of vacation off until after 2 years of working because of the volume of guards who have been working there over ten years.
We do not get off on holidays, the museum is only closed on mondays and Christmas. We get two personal days a year, and accrue less than one sick day a month (6 hours a month of sick leave).
This is a *union* organization in the United States.. i’d say this should generally throw up some red flags, but apparently working in a federally funded museum lets you gloss these kind of things over.