66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work
66% of Americans want European-style vacation policies, like being OOO for the entire month of August
Are there 34% of Americans who own businesses?
Edit: math before coffee
I work at a semiconductor fab in Portland Oregon, we get 5 weeks paid vacation. There''s a fairly large group of my coworkers who never use their vacation or sicktime out of principal.
Only because it's not a law. In Germany, it's usual to get 30 days of vacation, 20 are legal minimum. Your employer is required to make sure, you actually take at least 20 days and can be fined otherwise.
The principle of boot licking 😋🤤
What principle is this exactly?
In Portland or in Washington County?
Americans and voting against their best interests. Name a better duo.
Working in bad conditions so you can talk down to people that you perceive as lesser humans than you is the #1 interest for a lot of the country.
No they just didn’t ask the 34%. The way they are framing this is backwards.
The real headline is. American wage slaves have zero paid time off.
I really hate the term "vacation days." I'm not going to Disneyland everytime I'm out of the office. Most of the time its stuff like having the HVAC technician over during their 4-hour service call window; taking my family member to have surgery; recovering from the flu/covid; taking a mental health day or catch-up day for weekday-only errands.
This might be where some of the missing 34% are not agreeing for more days. The label is part of the problem. Hell I want more vacation days so that I CAN squeeze an actual vacation in there.
I don’t know if this holds true outside of my awareness, but I am only hearing folks refer to it as PTO (paid time off) these days. The place I work goes as far as to blend all types of days into one bucket, to be used for sick time or whatever the person needs.
Yup same here. My parents had both sick days and vacation days. Sick days were PTO you could use the day of, and vacation days needed to be scheduled ahead of time.
Everywhere I've worked that has either had no paid time off at all, or it has just been one bucket and you had to schedule it no less than 48hrs in advance, or they would automatically deny it. As in it would never reach a human being, the timekeeping system would just reject it outright.
I'm hearing more and more of the PTO term lately as well but still see some companies that categorize sick days in a separate non-carryover bucket. Vacation days may be a more generational thing that is phasing out I still hear that term (it's in some of the posts here), and then see it in articles such as this one so it's still out there conveying the wrong idea.
Lol I end up using my PTO as sick time except the now our policy only allows 4 sick days and we lost our point system and instead get fired after the 3rd occurrence. If I weren't WFH I'd have to find another job because I can't make it out the door most days. Also it still eats up my PTO to have an absence. I haven't had an absence in almost 2 years and I've had to work with migraines and running to the bathroom. Next month I have scheduled most of it off but I'll be recovering from work and sleeping lol. I don't need this job as we don't have kids so we've saved up plenty to live off of but the lack of health insurance would be problematic, though not sure that paying 400 a month for it right now isn't actually worse for what I get. Good thing I've got dual citizenship and can escape to Europe anytime I want lol! Just not back to Italy... our Healthcare system may be free but the quality is atrocious. But if the US pulls its head out of its ass and decides to actually care to improve itself I'm all for it. As it is right now it's just creating tired insane violent idiots.
Exaaaactly. I get 2 weeks vacation/PTO/sick days all year. That's 10 days. I need to reserve at least 5 of those for potential sick days (either for me or to take care of the family or whatever), go to doctor appointments, take car in to mechanic, stay home for air conditioner to be worked on or whatever. That kind of stuff. Then I use at least 2 or 3 over the year for holidays like thanksgiving, Easter, or Christmas so I can take care of the parents and family members that are in town.
So that leaves me with about 2-3 days all year for an actual vacation... If I go anywhere overseas I'm using pretty much 2 full days for travel there (travel there, travel back). So if I try to max it out I can realistically go on a legitimate vacation overseas for maaaaybe 1 or 2 days. Like a weekend trip to Italy or something. Nice 👍. it sucks so much. I am so jealous of people that go to like London for 2 weeks or a week long cruise or something. Only once in my life have I gone anywhere for a week or longer on vacation during my work career. The only way I could do it was to go on unpaid leave during that time.
The USA had a chance to start again and get so many things right. So why are they so backwards with some things?
We've had legally-protected paid leave in the UK for almost a century now. Granted, we were the first in the world, but most of Europe and many other countries now have similar protections. Many of which are more generous than the UK's.
That's not to mention the myriad of other laws and protections covering unfair dismissal (the "at will" system is fucking dystopian, sorry), a years paid maternity leave, statutory sick pay, mandatory employer pension contributions, working time regulations and mandatory redundancy pay. All of which have no federally-enforced equivalent.
I'm honestly a bit shocked that only 66% support PTO. Surely it's a no-brainer?
Is it a size thing? Is the idea of looking out for each other just untenable in such a large, diverse place?
I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a place where 34% of people have such an individualistic "I've got mine" mentality, that they don't even support mechanisms that virtually every other developed country collectively agrees is the fucking minimum needed in order to live reasonable existence.
US has PTO, it is just much less than Europe.
The reason there are people who don’t support it is because of conservative shame culture. If you aren’t rich, it is because you are lazy. They don’t want to take anything away from the rich because they earned it and deserve it. If that means the worker suffers, then the worker should just work harder so they can be rich too.
The US had a strong labor movement before the 2nd world war and into the 1950s when union membership was at its highest and the middle class was thriving and wealth inequality was a fraction of what it is today. What killed it was the Cold war and the spectre of communism which was used by conservatives (there were conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans back then) as a bludgeon to effectively kill the labor movement over the following decades until Reagan finally put a stake through its heart in the 80s.
That's the short version anyway. There's obviously a lot more to it.
In any case, the good news is that a lot of people seem to be waking up and demanding change. Union membership is on the rise as are other encouraging signs. I'm way too jaded to be optimistic about it, but I'm not as pessimistic as I once was. My own union has won two strikes in the last 5 years, for example.
On the flipside, the left has managed to pretty thoroughly alienate a huge chunk of blue collar workers who should be their natural constituency, so that's not great either.
We're ruled over by a perverted form of Christianity Calvinism where your work equals your atonement towards god or some other bs. This also gets the libertarians all jizzed up because "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" mindset.
Just wanted to point out you don't get 12 months paid maternity leave in the UK. Leave and pay have completely different rules so you have to think of them separately, even though they are intrinsically linked.
You are entitled to 12 months maternity leave, and in fact by law have to take the first 2 weeks (or 4 weeks for a factory worker) for health reasons. This is great but lots of women don't take the full 12 months time because the last few months would often be unpaid so is not the main factor.
Statutory maternity pay, which is what you are guaranteed and what the government pays the company, is 90% of your average earnings for the first 6 weeks, then it is the lower of £172.48 or 90% of your average earnings, for the next 33 weeks. Notice thats not 52 weeks in total! The average is also based on a certain time before you know you're pregnantso my wife got a bit screwed because of taking time off when changing job.
A lot of employers offer full paid maternity leave but it tends to be already better paying jobs or civil service jobs, and it's for 6 or 9 months. Then it's a reduced rate or even unpaid for last few months. There's also some caveats like having to work there for a full year before getting full pay, depends on seniority etc, because it is down to company policy rather than legally required.
Paternity leave is up to 2 weeks leave but statutory pay is the lower of £172.48 or 90% of your average earnings. Again, better employers offer full pay for 2 weeks or more.
They introduced shared parental leave afew years ago but most people only saw the headline and didn't realise you have to split out the pay, which is the lower of the two statutory amounts above. Good employers offer full pay for a few weeks but is very varied, even in "better" jobs. I wanted to take more shared parental leave time but would have to sacrifice my full pay to get it so could not afford it. My company at the time (well paid head office role at one of the largest banks in the UK) did not offer full pay for shared parental leave that is over paternity leave.
Most voters think its great because it works for them but actually there's a lot of inequality/capitalism in it, and therfore much room for improvement.
Yes, it's better than federally in America, and pregnancy/labour itself is completely free on the NHS so no costs on top but we should strive to be better, especially compared to a lot of continental European countries.
Our rules might be a good step up for you, especially as they're in quite a capitalist society, but it should not be the end goal by any means!
I did consider including more detail about maternity etc in my comment but in the end thought it wasn't material to my point. I'm glad you took the time to add some more nuance as an aside though. Thanks 👍
That's still way better than what we get... My wife got 4 months paid maternity leave when our daughter was born, and she works for a big bank, so better benefits than a lot of people.
Well they'd best join a union then, because those cunts upstairs aren't just going to give it to them.
Although personally I'd rather work through August just to avoid millions of families with kids everywhere. Holidays are so expensive at that time of year.
The way the law works here is you get five weeks vacation every year and have a right (but not an obligation) to take four of those consecutive between June and August. You must however take four weeks of vacation every year, the rest you can save for up to five years (before you have to take them as well).
Oh, and to really blow your mind, if you get sick during vacation, those count as sick days and you get the vacation back.
I hope that this example can show that more humane treatment of workers is attainable and realistic. We were not given these rights by benevolent overlords; our parents, grandparents etc. fought for them, and so can you. Unionize!
Although personally I’d rather work through August just to avoid millions of families with kids everywhere. Holidays are so expensive at that time of year.
Here in Denmark
in most places at least, you can choose the times you want vacation. Some places to "force" their employees to take 3 weeks during june - august... but then you still got 3 other weeks you can sprinkle around the year. (a lot of other places dont care)
and yes, i know a lot of people who spend their main vacations in may, or september. My mother mostly travels in the off-months (hotels, plane tickets etc, are also cheaper)
Start voting for the people that subscribe to those ideals
Stop voting for idiot billionaires that are against those things
But... the idiot billionaires back the racist, sexist, and xenophobic policies that match with my deeply ignorant ideology!
Who could be against more free time!? The remaining 34% must think granting workers more vacation time is tantamount to communism.
The same people who have Medicare and don’t believe in socialized medicine.
Baby boomers and the silent generation need to get dementia and gtfo
I bet a good number of those people are the ones who get lots of vacation time already and are just pulling others down because they want to be treated better than average. It's like how there's people who oppose raising min wage because "they don't want burger flippers to make the same pay as they do". Crabs in a bucket mentality.
There's a lot of Americans who sadly think that way. We see it with the student loan forgiveness efforts, too. They can't be happy with others getting nice things unless they themselves are still somehow getting better things. To not mince words, they lack empathy and are selfish.
Most Americans don't even take the two weeks if leave they get.
Now what percent want to fully be in Europe?
Because fuck what America is today.
Hi, me! I'm going to move to Europe within the next 6 years and never look back. Fuck this country, it's not going to get any better any time soon. The daily lifestyle is just horrible.
If you can be self-employed and don't have EU citizenship, look into DAFT.
The other 34% probably.
How many PTO days do European's get a year? I'd like to compare to where I'm at after starting a new job here in the US (US native).
30+1 (my company gives everyone an extra day in December for a "shopping day").
Plus, of course, paid sick leave, with no ridiculous limitations.
UK, working for a German company.
Netherlands hete
. Sick leave, unlimited (first 2 days are at your expense, the rest is payed in some degree).
. Pto (zorgverlof, care time) so you can take care of your kid, yourself, mom, whatever, unlimited but it's either unpayed or you use vacation days for that. Can not be refused by boss.
.Vacation days, minimum of 22 (some jobs get 37 by law) to be spent on pto, vacation, a day to the zoo, whatever.
.Overtime (if your boss agrees) is turned into either more vacation days or payed at 100% or more. Very subject to the type of job.
There is A LOT of information on this, and this barely scratches the surface, but this is what you can expect here
Vacation days, minimum of 22 (some jobs get 37 by law) to be spent on pto, vacation, a day to the zoo, whatever
I'm so sad :(
Belgium: 20 days plus all legal holidays with extra days if they fall in the weekend. Sick days are practically unlimited, at this moment.
If first line relative dies it's 3 days off, but decent employers would give you a week.
Sick children you can't find care for, is a day off paid at a lower rate by the government.Though with WFH this seems to have changed to doing what you can with full pay from home, if you're an office worker.
Starting in 2024, if I get sick during a holiday, those days off are converted to sick days and I can take those holidays later.
The idea of having to spend holidays if you get ill makes me want to burn down a building. You should try it.
Minimum 4 weeks or 20 days, but employers and countries can decide to give more.
I work the (for here) standard 36 hours per week, but I do 4 x 9 hours so I have a day off every week. You're free to create your own schedule (in my department anyway), so others work 8 hours for 4 days and 4 hours one day, or 8 per day and a day off every two weeks, or even 40 hours and they save up a day every two weeks to use at a later stage. A friend of mine does this and he takes a week off every two months and then goes on a longer holiday in the spring and autumn or something.
In terms of paid time off, I think I get about 25 days a year (plus some public holidays), but I also get a 16% "bonus" every month that I can spend on a variety of things. You can choose to receive it as extra salary, but you can also spend it on certain things like union dues, gym membership, a bicycle, etc with the benefit that you don't pay VAT (like sales tax I think) over those things.
But I often use it to "buy" leave. I think if I would always spend the full amount on leave I'd have about 10 weeks of vacation per year. You could definitely argue it's not really paid time off since I could work and earn more money. But you pay a relatively high amount of income tax over it and I consider it an extra anyway. So now I sometimes receive a bit more, but most of the time I get my normal salary, also when I'm on leave. I have a four day week and I can take two long vacations plus one or two short ones every year and I'm happy with that.
And as long as I perform normally I get a raise every year until I reach the highest step on the "ladder" for my position. And everyone's salary is raised slightly every year as well (though almost always, and especially now, less than inflation).
Poland.
26 days off, plus bank holidays; minimum two weeks consecutively off work during the year.
Unlimited sick leave for yourself or taking care of children, need doctor note, paid 80%.
9 months full pay or 12 months 80% pay maternity leave. Somehow this can be split with the father, but I'm not up to speed on it. Then up to 3 years unpaid leave if you want.
Extra days off by law: 2 days when you get married, have a child born, death of your spouse, child or parent; 1 say when your kid gets married and death of a sibling, grandparent or mother/father in law.
These are all by law, companies can and do go beyond (e.g. 100% paid sick leave).
What the hell is a “vacation”? I end up having to use all my PTO for days I’m sick or if I need to go to an appointment or my kids are home sick.
PTO is such a weird thing from the outside. Why don't you just strike and set everything on fire? No need to vote to get human rights...
Because we're indoctrinated from birth to believe, consciously or subconsciously, that property and "the economy" are sacred and more valuable than either human rights or actual human life itself.
Ah I see we’re back to comments landing in odd places.
While the average American is lucky to get 11 vacation days from their employer each year
Doesn't this also decrease if you get sick?
I got properly ill the day before I went on holiday, and was out for about a week. All those sick days didn't count against my vacation days.
Furthermore, my vacation days are (to an extend) transferable, which meant I had 31 vacation days this year. That just seems normal policy here (25 vacation days is fairly common in mid-range jobs).
I don’t think your experience is that common.
Companies generally charge sick days one way or another.
First two days of sick leave are by default unpaid, but then social systems kick in and the employer has to pay at least 70% of income (or min wage, whichever is higher).
It depends on the employer/ job. It became a thing in the 90s to put all time off in one pool for sick and vacation. It is a very US capitalist thing to use punishment & reward to modify behavior.
I would guess this varies a ton from place to place as you are legally not obligated to do this in many states. In my situation for example, you have to use vacation for sick days. It's all one bucket of time. If you're very lucky your manager may not count a sick day against your paid time off but technically it should count as the same. So if you get sick for 2 days, you usually have to use 2 days of your vacation/paid time off time for the year.
Also in my current place. Your vacation does not roll over. It gets paid out at the end of the year. So if you somehow don't use the time you're given they will just pay you as tho you worked all those hours. This is to discourage those from saving their time for like a month long vacation.
Understandable, just like in the EU each country has their own rules concerning vacation days and PTO, but they're likely closer to the Dutch rules than the "general" US rules if what I've been reading on Lemmy and Reddit.
It gets paid out at the end of the year.
Luckily this is protected, since paying out days off is taxed at 52% in the Netherlands, so you'd lose half the income for not going on holiday.
Generally only government employees have that. Federal employees get 30 days a year of vacation and will take all 30 the moment you need them.
What the fuck is wrong with 34% of Americans?
They're probably mostly rich or retired, so they can take as much vacation as they want anyway.
I think there’s a lot of good old moralization going on out there. «Young people are getting lazy» etc. Especially from old rich people who got everything handed to them.
They're probably employers.
Even if it actually worked that way, in what shithole reality is barely having any PTO at all preferable to having a shitload of it that you can only use at select times?
They don't tell you that here in Europe? You're free to spend your PTO when and where you wish, usually under the condition you at least take the legal minimum days per year. Companies get fined if they don't meet those limits.
There are usually restrictions about what requests employers can deny. Of course you can imagine some situations in which you can't have everyone leave when they wish (healthcare/police for instance). Of course there are shitty employers that try to abuse the exceptions and get away with it.
At my former (Dutch) employer I had to take the legal minimum 20 days each year, but the 5 extra days I could save and spend in the next 5 years.