[Serious] Why are Europeans guaranteed to have a minimum of 4 weeks paid time off and Americans are guaranteed 0?
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Posted Nov 20, 2017, 7:39 PM UTC
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Because America is a capitalist country that puts the needs of businesses before its people.
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Lack of real freedom.
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Because they have different governing bodies that decide different things...?
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You'd think that would be it, but a lot of states don't require any vacation time either. Like, even California doesn't.
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Yes, because state governments can decide those things as well.
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I just looked it up. It's not just California. Apparently there is no state that requires employers to give employees vacation. So there really is 0 guarunteed vacation leave in the U.S.
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Which leads back to my original comment. OP's question is comparing apples to oranges.
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Vacation length accrues over time - Europe has been employed a lot longer than "America", it's eared the 4 weeks by now, North America is still on probation relative.
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I'm hoping that by 2100 we'll be up to 2 weeks.
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That's not the relationship we have with our government. Generally we don't want governnent to interfere with and regulate absolutely everything. It's in our Consitution that the federal government has the power to promote the general welfare of the society. But does that mean the power to have mandatory vacations? For some yes, for others that's too far of a stretch in the definition of general welfare. The Euros are more comfortable with their governments having more power in their societies. It boils down to a difference in opinion on the role of government in society. In fact most of what is claimed to be "wrong" with the US boils down to nust this argument. Gay marriage, climate change policy, universal healthcare, gun control, etc all have roots in that original argument of how much power does the government actually have to weild.
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I did not say Federal. The states themselves don't even have any laws that would guarantee even 1 week.
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It's the ethos of Americanism.
You don't make it on your own, then you'll never make it. That's the generally mentality of most Americans, and the main principle upon which the republic was founded.
From Horatio Alger stories of streets paved with gold where anyone can make it rich, to the multiple gold rushes that peppered America from it's very birth, the entire principle of "America" is Sink or Swim, forge ahead, don't tread on me, etc. etc.
Europeans, with a substantially longer history and culture of religious intervention, public crises, and culture of on-going revolution (Imperial->Ecclesiasticle->Imperial->Soverinigty->Communism->Democracy etc.) has a more supportive and communal agreement of what it means to be a European of their particular nation.
American culture prides itself on it's patriotism, but strangely it's a patriotism of the self. There is no unified concept of America, and without this, there will never be a sense of carrying the burden of others.
Sure, Americans wave flags and scream patriotism from the mountain top, but it is a strange patriotism where each individual holds unto themselves the concept of Americanism.
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Vacation and sick days are often grouped together at major companies. This group is called 'PTO' or Paid time off.
Once you make it passed 90 days(probationary period) companies will often award you with 40 PTO hours (AKA 1 week vacation.) However, if you are sick at anytime during the year, your PTO hours will count towards sick days, and not a vacation.
If you last 5+ years at a company, they usually provide you with more PTO hours.
So really, Americans don't take vacation because we get sick sometimes.
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You can't take unpaid vacation? Because if you can then for practical purposes you can count this as paid vacation. Just put a bit of money from your every paycheck into a jar and when you take your unpaid vacation call the contest of the jar a vacation pay.
Overall the amount of hours an average American works a year is very near OECD average.
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[deleted]
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Apparently some people struggle with the definitions of minimum and guaranteed.
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You could. You just gotta be good at negotiating
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[deleted]
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which is smarter?
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Neither
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The Eruopean is the answer.
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Bad b8.
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Like with Football and Football
As an American, again I have to agree the European one is much better
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[deleted]
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You understand that this varies by employer or time in the company, right?
I have 3 weeks off per year guaranteed, my mother had 6 weeks off per year before she retired, and I could start polling my friends but two or three weeks off per year is pretty standard.
Unless you work for McDonald's or you're an intern.
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He's talking about labor laws.
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But in most countries in Europe everyone is guaranteed 4 weeks vacation. He's asking why it's not a federal law in the US.
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urope everyone is guaranteed 4 weeks vacation. He's asking why it's not a federal law in
Or why individual states never passed any laws that favor the workers.
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if you work between 1 and 10 years at any company in Poland. you are guaranteed 4 weeks paid leave a year, plus all the state holidays. After 10 years its 26 days and it doesn't matter where you work. you could be a bus driver or a banker.
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Yet the average of hours actually worked by an employee per year is 1928 in Poland and 1783 in the USA.
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Unless you work for McDonald's or you're an intern.
Are you talking about the US? If so you are sadly mistaken. Go and ask any person that works retail or food service if they get any PTO at all. Do you have any idea how many people there are in this country that work in those two sectors alone? 2-3 weeks off per year is anything but "standard" in this country.
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If so you are sadly mistaken. Go and ask any person that works retail or food service if they get any PTO at all. Do you have any idea how many people there are in this country that work in those two sectors alone? 2-3 weeks off per year is anything but "standard" in this country.
I used to work retail back in college. I was told I get 5 days off a year.
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That is not remotely common.
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I got two weeks off per year in retail.
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Management? Or a unicorn company? Because that's definitely not standard for an average retail employee.
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Because America lacks strong political representation for its workers, and doesn't have a liberal or labour party, just two conservative corporatist parties.
I think, in this respect, our Constitution is failing us. We need to move away from winner take all elections and start to embrace proportional allocation of seats, at least in the US House. In a proportional system, parties proliferate, because you can vote for a minority party and still have some Representation, no matter how small. Imagine how many Green party members would be in Congress if we had Proportional Representation? And proportional representation does away with gerrymandering.