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submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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.

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[-] markr@lemmy.world 160 points 1 year ago

Approximately 50% of voters will vote for a political party that views any such reform as communism.

[-] Buffaloaf@lemmy.world 52 points 1 year ago

It's actually quite a bit less than 50%, but their votes have a bigger impact because of a broken system.

[-] markr@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] aard 111 points 1 year ago

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)

[-] dreadgoat@kbin.social 66 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] aard 31 points 1 year ago

"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.

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[-] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 78 points 1 year ago

Then don't vote for Republicans.

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[-] dhork@lemmy.world 72 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] sep@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] xantoxis@lemmy.world 57 points 1 year ago

34% of Americans responded "grind my body into the ground, capitalism daddy"

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[-] Jagermo@feddit.de 43 points 1 year ago

I know lots of us people with "unlimited time off" type contracts. No one ever takes more than a week because they are afraid that their bosses wouldnt like it.

[-] krakenx@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago

Why do 34% of Americans not want paid time off work?

[-] abbotsbury@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

Because they will think of someone else who "doesn't deserve it" getting it and mald.

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[-] EliteCaster@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago

Who are the other 34%?? Who is like "yeah idk a consecutive 30 days off every summer actually, legitimately sounds BAD to me"?

[-] thunderkatz@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

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[-] greavous@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago

It's not too surprising that a country that had a civil war over 'employment laws' is a bad place to work.

[-] Darkard@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] UnbeatenDeployGoofy@lemmy.ml 29 points 1 year ago

I’m gonna assume the remaining 33% prefer to have a vacation other than summertime.

[-] technopagan@discuss.tchncs.de 27 points 1 year ago

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".

[-] Ricaz@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

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[-] derf82@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

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/2023/08/17/1194467863/europe-vacation-holiday-paid-time-off

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[-] machsna@lemmy.sdf.org 25 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] HurlingDurling@lemm.ee 23 points 1 year ago

As an American, I want that sweet sweet Netherlands lifestyle so bad in the US.

[-] DarthBueller@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

Nederlanders actually are able to talk to each other, come up with solutions to intractable problems, and plan beyond the next political cycle. They also have empty churches.

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[-] GeorgeBush1@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

It's mind boggling that there's no minimum PTO law in the US

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[-] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 22 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] Rediphile@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 year ago

I love paid time off. But the summer when tons other people are off and everything is busy/expensive/hot would be my very last choice.

I'm all about that off season.

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[-] suction@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

OOO for all August? That's the French, not all Europeans.

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[-] Mvlad88@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

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.

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[-] amenotef@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

The OOO full August sucks because every near touristic place is crowded and 2+ times more expensive.

I never pick August. But my company doesn't force me to pick August either.

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[-] teft@startrek.website 18 points 1 year ago

Congress does it. If it’s good enough for the ruling class it should be good enough for the rest of us.

[-] Deelala0516@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

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. 🤦

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[-] potopato@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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".

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[-] crate_of_mice@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago

Somehow I doubt those 66% of Americans will bother voting for the people and parties that would make this happen though.

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[-] randon31415@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Or, if you are a rail worker, more than one day off a month. Not, one day plus weekends, mind you, one day period.

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this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
1551 points (98.1% liked)

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