Hey Dude, Where's My Vacation?

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/54681/

Hey Dude, Where's My Vacation?

By David Moberg, In These Times. Posted June 23, 2007.

America is the richest country in the world -- so why does this country deny its workers mandated paid vacations and sick days?


Last year Mary Lou Eckart took her first vacation in five years, a trip from her home in Decatur, Ill., to see her grandchildren in Florida. But the Illinois state government, which pays her to care for a severely disabled teenage girl, provides her no paid vacation time. So Eckart took the girl -- and her work -- with her.

She faces a similar bind if she gets sick. "I just had an incident two weeks ago," she says. "I had an inner ear infection that I didn't know about, and I passed out. My 17-year-old daughter covered for me while I recovered. I get no paid vacation, no time off, no sick leave. But if they put these clients in a nursing home, I know that is very expensive. I'd love to have a vacation. I'd love to be able to get away. I'd love to have someone fill in for me. I feel like we deserve more than what we're getting."

Eckart's story is all too common: Nearly one-fourth of American workers have no paid vacation or holidays, according to a recent study from the D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), and nearly half of all private sector workers have no paid sick days. But if Eckart were living in any other industrialized country, she would be legally guaranteed at least two weeks paid vacation and -- in 136 countries -- from seven to more than 30 paid sick days. The United States is the only rich country that does not mandate paid vacations and paid sick days, and Americans who are afforded such benefits enjoy far less time off than workers in other wealthy nations.

Americans now work more every year, on average, than workers in any other industrialized country (except for a virtual tie with New Zealand). With women working longer hours each year, the average annual work time for a married couple is growing steadily, and family time -- including the crucial bonding experience of vacations -- has suffered. Full-time workers in much of Europe typically take seven to eight weeks of vacation and holidays each year -- that's double the American average for full-time workers.

Overall, the average private sector worker in the United States gets about nine paid vacation days and six paid holidays each year. Low-paid, part-time or small-business workers typically get far fewer, sometimes none. The same holds for paid sick leave: 72 percent of the highest-paid quarter of private sector workers get paid sick days compared to only 21 percent of workers in the lowest-paid quarter.

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Now go enlist because America needs defending. (Whoops! Good call, FOX News... :sarcasm: )

Git back to those cotton fields or those salt mines! (Crack of the Whip sounds) Work! You Lazy SumB--ches! (Crack of the Whip) Wall Street needs those profits!(Crack of the Whip)