Working all the time? Even if you like your job, that’s not living…
(via Soc Prof, this comparative chart on vacation time.)
Comparative vacations from CEPR
Canada’s not so hot either. When I worked in the corporate world I got two weeks. Which I found, was about long enough so that I had de-stressed enough to do things, around about the time I ran out of time. And Lord help me years when I had to use that time to take care of some family crisis.
I could go on about the economics, but the bottom line is simpler: in a good society, work is only one part of your life, and we do it enough so we can live a good life, and no more.
(Post updated with properly labeled chart, albeit somewhat fuzzier.)
John
I attribute this to the heritage of slavery and the illness of Calvinism. There is a slave master mentality among the managing class of the US workforce. And the average worker is really only considered 3/5’s a person as mandated for the slaves in the Constitution. It is the Original Sin of the US and plagues us in so many ways.
I personally discovered European attitudes to work in the late ’60’s.
I remember commenting to a German friend who was a bank clerk that if Americans were given 4-5 weeks paid vacation, they would simply use the time for a part time job to get more money. The shocked reply was that she was obligated to her employer to take her vacation and come back to the job recharged and productive. That response shocked me.
alyosha
I wonder what the chart looks like for Japan, another nation of workaholics (that story of, I believe the Camry engineer who keeled over from overwork, sticks with me).
I grew up in a town with a large GE plant, and so the notion of everyone around you marching to the same (industrial) drumbeat was the background music to my childhood (along with the Beatles and the wildly beautiful counterpoint of the 1960s). My brother and I coined the phrase “the 50 and 2” to describe the dismal situation Soc Prof’s chart describes, and to which nearly everyone around me was a part of. I suspect this why “freedom” and “independence” are hugely important themes to my life: a revolt against this kind of wage slavery.
This really puts Canada in perspective. I suspect it’s because your nation is so close to the US, and is in some ways an economic colony that it’s plagued with the same “50 and 2” we have south of the border.
beowulf
Alyosha, Fairly sure a “a large GE plant” (even if non-unionized) would have benefits, work conditions and job security superior to that of virtually any other kind of private sector employer in the US. Of course, just as with health and disability insurance, defined benefit pensions, overtime rules and job security, federal employees have better vacation and sick day policies than just about anyone in the private sector– 13 days sick leave accrue annually (4 hours per 2 week pay period) and can carry over to future years. New employees accrue 13 days annual vacation leave on the same schedule, the 19.5 days annual leave after 3 years and 26 days after 15 years (up to 30 days can carry over to future years).
A big part of the opposition to government that teabaggers harness is the feeling that government workers have safe overpaid sinecures. None of the teabaggers stop to think, what if they government workers are simply getting the fair deal everyone should be getting? The real problem is that private sector jobs are insecure and underpaid.
As to what should be done, I’d note that the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 gave Civil Rights protection to the disabled including those working in the private sector. In fact, that part of ADA Act pretty much wrote itself, since Congress had already protected the rights of disabled federal employees with the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Likewise, whether it by mandate or by federal provision, the goal should be “the US Government should guarantee its citizens the same job benefits that the US Government gives its own employees”. As an example of”federal provision”, I believe Dean Baker has proposed giving employers a tax credit conditioned on giving workers an additional 15.5 days (125 hours) paid leave.
jbaspen
Ian, this is another excellent missive. However, this Chart has Twenty (20) Vertical (blue) Bar Reports, but only Ten (10) Countries listed.
Certainly not the biggest worry(ies) we all face. But, just where are the Germans in all of this?
Thanks, Ian. – JOHN
Bolo
Here’s an interesting read: “Fighting for the Welfare State: How the Danes Successfully Fought to Get 6 Weeks of Yearly Vacation”
http://www.american-pictures.com/english/racism/articles/welfare.htm
Ian Welsh
John,
updated with a fully labeled chart, albeit somewhat fuzzier.
Detlef
jbaspen,
As a German I should add that the 24 days shown in the chart above are the minimum paid leave per year as required by German federal law from 1963.
That´s where the 24 days come from.
Back then the 6 day working week was common, so 24 days translate into 4 weeks paid annual leave. For the much more common 5 day week today, 20 days are the minimum requirement.
The law also forbids working for money during your leave so the bank clerk mentioned by John was totally right. 🙂
(Not that most Germans would seriously consider that. Vacations are taken seriously here. 🙂 )
The law also requires (from the employers) that at least one paid leave every year should consist of at least 2 uninterrupted weeks. Thinking that you need a few days at the beginning of your vacation to relax, forget work etc. And that your real “recharging the batteries” starts only then.
Oh, and if you get sick during your vacation, with a medical certificate to prove it, then these days being sick don´t count as paid leave. It´s paid sick leave then. These days will be added back to your unused annual leave account.
In reality, 30 days paid annual leave for full-time workers (6 weeks) are normally the rule in Germany today. Negotiated by unions.
And the 13 days paid public holidays are probably an average. Public holidays vary between German states. From 10 to 16 if I remember correctly.
Federal public holidays (9) plus additional state holidays.
A typical vacation plan could look something like this:
2-3 weeks in summer (vacation on the beach 🙂 )
or 2-3 weeks in winter or early spring for the skiing fans
Depending on which of the above you´ve chosen
1-2 additional weeks in summer or around Easter
Which brings you to around 4 weeks used.
Followed by clever use of paid leave days around Christmas if possible.
(December 25 and 26, January 1 are federal public holidays. December 24 and 31 are “half-days”. You only work till noon.)
In “good” years (public holidays falling on working days) the use of just 5 leave days can give you up to 13 days of vacation.
Which leaves you with 5 days for “emergencies”. Long weekend for visiting family, that sort of thing.
alyosha
@beowulf, I used to work at the GE plant I mentioned. You’re right, they had terrific benefits, once-upon-a-time. A heavily unionized plant, it was widely regarded as the best place in town because of the benefit package. Recently, friends have told me of severe cutbacks in this regard; notably health insurance is now pretty much just catastrophic coverage. I don’t know what else has been trimmed.
If you were in the union, and had seniority, you had great job security. If neither of these, then good luck.
beowulf
Detlef, I forgot about public holidays. In the US, federal employees get 10 paid holidays (private sector employees get 6 holidays off, with asterisks, not always for pay).
New Year’s Day – January 1 *
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday – 3rd Monday in January
Presidents Day – 3rd Monday in February
Memorial Day – last Monday in May *
Independence Day – July 4 *
Labor Day – 1st Monday in September *
Columbus Day – 2nd Monday in October
Veterans Day – November 11
Thanksgiving Day – 4th Thursday in November *
Christmas Day – December 25 *
Bernard
amazingly, i had never heard of Calvin until fairly recently. it’s true we are an Original Sin nation. the whole concept that we are human, and have rights to be happy as an inherent “right” is contrary to what most Americans are raised to believe in this country. At least not the right to live besides the “duty” for work as a slave. so that’s another take on the 3/5ths clause, even non-blacks don’t deserve full rights as well.
when i found out about Europeans getting so much time off from work for Vacations and the whole concept of “society,” i knew we were seriously screwed as a nation. one more example of the class structure benefiting the “owner class.”
with this kind of thinking as a given, the rest of the American way is just as ‘inhuman.” i can’t say much for religion if it presumes we are “bad/original sin” from the start. i don’t know much about Canada and its’ society. i suppose finding out that Europeans has such “socialistic” societies, as far as “time off” was concerned made me very pro-European when it came to what kind of society we should aim to be.
to hear most Americans take on Europe is really proof that we have been brainwashed, especially when they hear about the set up of work in Europe. Europe is “Socialist.” Americans really seem to think from an American business model, and therefore there is a general view “such horror” at perceiving how anti work Europe is. the anti-humanist thinking is the American way. We are inherently bad and therefore don’t deserve a humanistic view of work with time off to “recuperate.”
damn religious nuts. the puritans started it then and today we have the Right wing Christianists who staunchly continue such insanity. i suppose it is all about control, and the benefits that incur from the control. White Anglo Saxon Protestants.
so much for separation of church and state.
anonymous
I don’t have any dispute with what Ian Welsh has written regarding vacation/holidays/sick leave, but it focuses on the small time that people are not working instead of the large time that people are working. Yves Smith had a post recently that included a chart that suggests a relationship between income inequality and heath & social outcomes. It appears from the table that Ian posted that time off would be distributed similarly in that chart.
What I am wondering is whether time at work is similarly less good in the U.S. as time off is, relative to the other industrialized countries. And is there a cause-and-effect relationship between the income inequality and the quality of time at work?
Given the past 150 years of not paying the full cost of fossil-fuel use, however, much of this discussion about work and time off is moot. We now need to spend a considerable amount of time and work simply shepherding the planet back to health, whether it meets our “career goals” or “personal satisfaction” or not.
Anonymous
From my current perspective, this is an academic question. Being unemployed at 58, I just want a job before despair sets in completely.
lambert strether
SMBIVA owns this topic: See here and here.
Ian Welsh
Yes, income inequality is highly correlated with health and social issues. Ironically, however, even if you are at the top of the stack, if you live in an inequal society, you will have more health and social issues personally.