BREAKING: Bernie Sanders just introduced the Guaranteed Paid Vacation Act — a bill to guarantee at least two weeks of paid vacation to every full-time worker in America. Over 90 other members of Cong…
Full title: BREAKING: Bernie Sanders just introduced the Guaranteed Paid Vacation Act — a bill to guarantee at least two weeks of paid vacation to every full-time worker in America. Over 90 other members of Congress have already signed on to the legislation.
188 replies
Two weeks or 10 days isn't enough. Push for at least 20 days like most of the world has. Also force companies to provide sick days instead of using a shared pool. You shouldn't have to sacrifice a vacation because you got sick of had to go to the doctor.
(Im not American) While I agree 2 weeks is not nearly enough, isn't this also a bit "perfect is the enemy of good"? Anything is better than nothing, and 2 weeks is at least a start. Pushing to 4 weeks can be done after the 2 weeks has been achieved.
Agree. In this political climate, getting any positive change is tough. This is a good first step that would have affected me at the first two of three FT positions I've worked. It's not good enough long term imo, but it's positive and I'll celebrate the hell out of that.
10 is better than what we have, but don't start with what you are willing to negotiate down to. Start strong and be willing to compromise if that is what is needed. I don't think mandatory minimum days off is a controversial issue except for the ruling class.
Who are you giving advice to? I don't think Bernie can hear you, and even if he could, I'm 99% sure he would passionately explain precisely why you're wrong and the methodology behind his decision.
I'm stating my opinion. I would love to hear why he chose the days that he did. I'm not saying he is an idiot or wrong, I'm sure he knows what he can get as he has been in the Senate long enough to know these things.
Fair enough, no further comments.
That's exactly it. Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection
I’d argue we should start taking pages out of the right’s playbook. Start with hilariously unachievable numbers to drag the Overton window towards the left, so that your actual desired number seems more reasonable in comparison.
Basically, if you only want 14 days, start by listing 28. Then when the final bill that congress is voting on only has 14 days, you’re able to say you reached across the aisle and compromised.
Conservatives do it all the time. They’ll use conservative talking heads and influencers to float extreme ideas, and begin normalizing them. So that the conservative lawmakers can then start introducing more tame versions of the now-normalized insane ideas. Basically, drag the Overton window towards the right, and now your extreme policies don’t appear as extreme.
But but America number 1, no? So the new law should push them to the first place. They could call it the America Number One act.
No, this is conceding ground that could be used for negotiation before they even start. He's asking for 2 weeks, negotiations happen -> maybe 1 week is achieved.
Ok, but... That is still more than the US has now. You need to start somewhere.
Yes, so you ask for 4 weeks to actually get 2. Starting a negociation with a concession is simply poor strategy
TBH this doesn't seem like a bill that was drafted with the intent of passing. More likely this is to give Democratic challengers of Republican incumbents something easy to confront them about when they inevitably vote against this. The bill reads as reasonable to the average worker, who may be less likely to support a candidate that voted against giving them a measly 10 days off.
If I get sick on vacation I get to recover my vacation days. Of course I need to prove it, so it's not always worth it or practical, but it should definitely not be the same pool.
Yeah, my employer requires FMLA paperwork for any medical absences longer than 2 days.
Anyone who has ever had to do FLMA paperwork knows exactly how obscene that is. My doctor’s office charges for FMLA paperwork specifically because it’s such a chore. Which means that if I need to be out sick for longer than a few days, I have to pay my doctor’s office to fill the paperwork out.
It should be the other way around: if you are really sick multiple days during your vacation, you should get more vacation days because you didn't have your vacation while sick. Since becoming sick right when your vacation starts is a strong indication of being seriously overworked for a long time.
That's how it works here, in EU
Agreed, that's insane. I get like 3 weeks just around the holidays alone. Thanksgiving week, and about two weeks from Christmas eve through new years days.
Then unlimited vacation on top of that, from which I've already taken 4 weeks this year.
What about not having ‘sick days’ but unconditional paid medical leave if deemed necessary by your MD?
That’s what we have, and although it can be abused (as everything) it seems the most humane and natural thing to have. You cannot know how many days you will be sick. Generally people doesn’t get sick at all!
I'm not opposed to that. Would need to have a limited number of unverified sick days as Americans would abuse it, at least for a time. If you go to a doctor and they say it is necessary for you to be off work for 3 months, then an employer would have to respect that. There would also need to be punishment for retaliating against employees that have long sick periods.
One compromise is businesses could be compensated by the government for sick time employees use beyond what is given by company policy. If someone has to take two weeks and they were only slotted one, the government will give a fixed amount per day that does not exceed that employee's daily wages.
The way it works in Denmark is your boss can demand a doctor's note from your doctor. They can do this no matter the circumstances, but they're required to pay for it. I've never been asked to get a doctor's note, but I have also never been untrustworthy enough for a boss to not believe when I say I'm sick.
In Spain there is an established procedure. The doctor signing you for sick leave must work for the public healthcare system, and the cost of the procedure is zero. The communication to the employer is via electronic means, and the information provided to the company DOES NOT contain the diagnose nor the treatment, just the estimated recovery time.
Or simply consider the fact people gets sick part of the cost of doing business, and plan accordingly.
My job has separate PTO and sick hours. Only downside is the sick hours cap at 80, with 40 given each year. So I basically just take random "sick" days.
Ah, the “I feel too good to work today” sickness
Mental health days are valid uses of sick time!
Wait - so currently it is legal for employers in the US to give ZERO vacation days to employees? Jeez, what kinda shithole country is the US?
They elected a 'thing' that's obviously been a con man for decades.
A blatant racist, casino bankrupting corrupt piece of disgusting scum. Who has had nearly 30 court cases for sexual assault.
A so called human that has numerous websites tracking their obvious lies, thousands and thousands of confirmable and easily debunked lies.
Then there's the 30 plus felonies. The numerous court cases and fines etc, some of which involve being fined for stealing from children's charity's.
The list goes on and on...
But, then, get this, then they fucking elected it again. And this was after the Covid debacle, an attempted insurrection, stealing of top secret documents to sell or use in nefarious manner, AND the Epstein-tRUMP files being in everyone's faces.
That is what the us is to me now. And for the rest of my life.
A country so complacent/evil/stupid that they can elect one of the very worst 'humans' in living history... TWICE!
its unrelated to current president. this been a problem for decades. clinton, bush, obama, biden, trump etc
So how many vacation days did the law mandate before 2016?
I think they're saying that an electorate that stupid wouldn't have been voting for reasonable policy even before that.
So was there a vote on vacation days at some point? And if not, how does one vote for these sensible policies?
How did all these other countries do that, and not the US? I think it starts with "America doesn't have poor people, they have temporarily embarrassed millionaires". So everyone is voting in the interest of the capitalist class, because they want to believe they are part of it. Where that comes from is a matter of historical processes.
I mean kind of... It was the Democratic primary and Bernie unfortunately lost it
Well said.
It's a place where you're expected to work until you die, mostly.
Oh honey....
neat. i’m salaried and have “unlimited flex time off” which means “you're kept so busy with mismanagement of projects if you leave for two weeks you’ll screw your peers over.”
Always remember that when an employer says you're screwing coworkers over by taking leave that the employer was free to hire another employee to make it so the workload would be reasonable, and that you as an employee had no such ability to influence the situation. All you are doing is taking leave for your own personal health.
ALL leave is health-related leave.
And any company offering you "unlimited" leave is just making it known that they're the kind of company to make efforts to not have to pay you. "Unlimited leave" is a big red flag.
Don't forget the psychological effect that it has on people that makes most people take less time off. Also the company can benefit from it by no longer having to agree to accrued time which means if the setup had people bankng time they would be paid out on it when they retire, leave, or get fired. This allows them to save all that money each person had been saving. If the company is willing to set things up like this you should always be asking how do they benefit from this change.
It's crazy to think the majority or people working are all to young to know that at one time companies actually did try to come up with real incentives to keep its employees happy.
My company switched to unlimited PTO about 2 months before my son was born. Prior to the change the policy for paternity leave was 2 weeks plus any vacation days you wanted to spend. I had 2 weeks at that point so was looking forward to spending a month off with my new boy and helping the Mrs recover.
With the new policy they eliminated paternity leave and just had unlimited PTO. I had to press really hard for them to finally say to just take the month off and that they only would start to look at people who take more than 3 weeks off.
Part time and contractors should be included, not just FTE.
And it should be 4 weeks. To make up for all that "productivity" we already put in without time off.
...and to bring you in line with the rest of the world.
Start with something.
Contractors are difficult because they tend to be hourly, and hourly employees lose out when there is time off. My first studio would do typical 2 week shutdownns around Christmas time, but they stopped doing it because workers complained about lost pay.
They should definitely be added. But I think getting a foot in the door is more important while we still have this current administration.
How should this go about if I may ask? Genuinely curious to learn the terminologies behind this.
Is it a bonus? Paid leave?
A bit hard to say. Since there's two major types of contractors
the "basically employees" contractors are ones who do everything expected of an employee but aren't granted the status of an employee. This is a "simple" matter in enforcing that they be actual employees under the law, either through courts or with a definition of duties that keep them from skirting that line (though employers will always try). Basically make the definition relatively lax so they can't do stuff like "work 38 hours a week" to avoid it.
The "truly contractors" who essentially set their own hours and get paid for work provided. Basically stuff in the gig economy . These are pay as you go so I'm not sure you can enforce vacation time into this model.
For the second, I can see it being offered by the employer -a merciful one that is- that you get paid leave. It can be also a sort of compensation if the work tasked is expected to have a crunch time toward the late stage.
Crazy that we're fighting to achieve some of the lowest time-off standards in the developed world.
Tbf, it's a minimum value. Then the average will be forced to be higher, because employers still need to compete to have some postions filled.
My issue is the question on the definition of "full time position". I'm assuming 30hr/week like health insurance. We already have a problem of employers refusing to let employees work more than 25hr/week to avoid the additional costs associated.
I think the bill needs a provision that part-time has equivalent requirements based on yearly hours to close that loophole
That's what they said about minimum wage. It'll go up but the shit is still $7 or $2 if you're unlucky.
So is the value for other countries. I get 25 when legal minimum is 20. You are fighting for the lowest standards.
The US maternity leave is the shortest in the world and medically dangerous.
There is no maternity leave???
And we will fight tooth and nail and still lose
I think this is stupid. We need the bill to be way more aggressive, ambitious, and inclusive.
Here's what needs to be happen for this bill to bring meaningful change:
Now THIS is a serious bill. It guarantees a generous 42 workdays (20 vacation + 5 sick time + 5 personal days + 12 holidays) worth of paid time off annually which finally puts this country not just on on par with the rest of the developed world, but ahead. If the US is to serve as the leader of the free world, this is how it has to be done. This on top of the mandatory employment protections and extra paid time off for specific scenarios, makes this a truly worker friendly country. This kind of bill would increase happiness, improve health, and reduce stress for hundreds of millions of people.
Now, I'm not naive, I know Republicans and corporate Democrats will try to water this down. However, even if we only end up getting 2/3 or even 1/2 of the benefits and guarantees on this bill then that's still a huge win. You have to start negotiations from a high a place so you'll end up with something that's at least acceptable. What Bernie proposed is starting from a low place to appease people who are genuinely greedy and apathetic to the point of being evil. You can't do that. You have to hit them hard and rally the people on your side. People will whine about me letting perfect be the enemy of good, but I'm not. I'm against letting mediocrity stop us from achieving anything meaningful. If the Democrats did less performative shit and focus on real change like my hypothetical expanded bill, they would sweep the GOP into oblivion.
And this radical plan would just bring the USA to the established standards of the developed world.
Actually, if the US offered 42 paid days off a year as in my hypothetical bill, it would rank first in the developed world alongside Monaco who also offers 42 paid days off. Also most countries in the developed world don't mandate things like personal days, bereavement, or paid time off for mandatory civic duties. For the few countries that do, it's very limited.
For example, a couple of countries in the Balkans offer 7 days of paid bereavement time per year, and that's the highest in the world. Most countries offer only a couple of days or nothing at all. So offering 10 days for every loved that passes away in a single year would make this the most the most generous paid bereavement leave in the world.
Still though, we currently have nothing so anything would be nice at this point.
You're COUNTING sick days. Sick days are generally not counted elsewhere. There are limitations on the number of consecutive days you can take without getting signed off by a doctor, but that's it. Had one team member that got frequent migraines, and averaged about 1 sick day every two weeks. Good employee, just took a lot of sick leave. Questions were asked but because it was a valid reason nothing was done.
What you're describing is 25 days off plus public holidays. Very normal.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
I like your plan. We should create a website that lists those things we want instead of letting politicians make shit up for us.
We really should. It's up to us organize and push change. Our complacency is what brought us to this point. We have to be active and demand our rights.
Without leverage, we have to do it this way. They just shut it down if it's the slightest bit "radical". Make it in a way that even the most rabid MAGA diehard can't disagree with the idea.
France adds on another 15 days of holidays, which can be taken at any time, not just on national holidays. It's a total of 8 weeks.
Oh yeah, how many billionaires with doomsday shelters and yachts fleets does Frances have?
Check mate, frenchies.
(Goes to die in a ditch)
Ashtually…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_billionaires_by_net_worth
Are you saying France has vacation days, holidays and 15 days of holiday you can take whenever? Cause Denmark has 25 vacation days and 5-10 (Depending on what days 24+25+26+31/12 and 1/1 falls on and if you have the 24th and 31st of December off) holidays, so a total of 30-35 days off, meaning guaranteed 5 weeks whenever you want and 1-2 weeks of national holidays.
Many people in France will have 39 h/week contracts, but because the legal workweek is 35h, you actually accumulate 2 extra days per month worked
As is often the case in France, it's complicated.
Basic paid leave for a CDI/cadre (full time employee) is 25 business days.
On top of that there is RTT. This is because we have a 35 hour work week. In order to do the more typical 40 week, you get those hours back as more paid leave - 10 days.
On top of that there national holidays, of which there are plenty. Most of these revolve around food from what I can tell (I'm a Brit, I just live in France). If those national holidays fall on a weekend, you lose them though, which sucks, but even a bad year is pretty good.
This info is coming from a relative who was working in France. My understanding was he didn't automatically get any of France's scheduled holidays of unless he used leave to do so. So the bank of 15 "national holidays" was effectively converted into more leave.
He can introduce the most sane, rational, logical bills this country has ever seen, and there's no chance of it passing until after the 2028 election at best. Even with the current progressive momentum, there simply aren't going to be enough votes to pass anything good (especially enough to overcome any virtually certain veto) unless progressives rout everybody else in both this year and the 2028 elections.
This. Even if it manages to pass through this deeply partisan Congress, it needs to be signed by the president. If the president refuses to sign, it'd have to be sent back with a supermajority to override the veto, which is simply unthinkable today.
Exactly. People are excited like this is a done deal. Good bills get INTRODUCED all the time. And almost without exception they die before they even get to a vote.
My immediate thought with this is that is to force the opponents to vote against it, so that it becomes another example to use as an argument for voting in people that aren't against any progress.
I want to see who votes against it.
"Rise in the number of part time employees surges as employers exploit this one loophole."
Didn't this already happen under Obamacare?
A bunch of service sector employers tried to schedule their staff at under 32 hours while still squeezing them for 40+ hours of work. Everyone hated the system, because it continued to leave the onus of health care on individual employers, while private premiums climbed. And then the courts + Trump Admin defanged any effective enforcement.
What a great system. So glad we weren't simply covering everyone with Medicaid by default.
Yep! So instead of one full time job you had to juggle multiple part time jobs because a lot of business watch your hours like a hawk.
What should happen is part-time employees should receive the same leave, proportional to the actual amount of time/days worked.
The jobs that are easy to part time to avoid benefits are already doing so. This doesn't really move the needle on that.
Though, it would be a good thing to address that at some point.
It's again and again baffling how backwards the US are. We've had four weeks minimum since before I was born, and I'm an ageing millennial
I don't understand why the US hasn't got powerful unions to defend workers rights. Don't people organise themselves!?
Believe it or not, we have people who hate unions. Unfortunately it's not without reason. Some unions are compromised and favor the company theyre made to oppose. It's so crooked.
We have people in unions who hate unions. Apparently the propaganda Kool aid is a great flavor
I am a person who dislikes unions. There was a time when they didn't suck and actually did lots of good. But these days, they are just looking to justify the over inflated union dues. They protect many shit employees. encouraging incompetence and lazy individuals while driving the cost up and up and up. Over regulating saftey to the point of just fucking stupid. Was on a job site recently, the use of a ladder over 5ft is forbidden, and you will be written up. You must have a fucking man lift. $200 ladder vs. $15,000min piece of equipment to change lightbulbs... nice.
Had to load a large piece of used equipment I bought from a union weld fab shop. I was over size so the trucking had to leave around 13:00-14:00 to make it back to destination before sunset. I had to have a truck they were loading pull out and have my truck back in. Great. My truck is in the shop, I get the piece rigged up and ready needed 5-10 min, guy walks over to me starts to lift the piece up. Lunch bell goes, walks away, and piece dangling in the air. Can't get him to finish loading because it's lunch..... for fucks sake. Because of the lunch delay, I have to pull my truck out because they need the bay to load and wait. My truck doesn't get loaded until 16:00 and have to guess what, pay for another full day of trucking.
First off, the safety rules are because people die without them. They're there for your protection. The price of them is your boss' problem, not yours, stop worrying on his behalf, you aren't getting paid to do his job.
Second: You need to be angry at the boss instead of the workers. Why do you think they go on break at the exact time? Because if they spend 10 minutes helping you, that's 10 minutes they can't eat their lunch, and if they postpone their break 10 minutes, they'll be written up or fired for not working. The problem is their boss, you're angry at the abused instead of the abuser.
A union employee fired? That would be amazing to see.
You're working the wrong job then
Cry about it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law
And of course businesses regularly lobbying against unions as well as any form of regulation they can along with media outlets controlled by the ultra wealthy serving as their propaganda outlets against unions, among other things.
Thank you for this reply, i had no idea.
Union busting and killing protestors and semding the pinkertons after them is a long held tradition in the US
There is a long and storied history behind this if you actually are interested in learning why
Someone earlier informed me about the Taft–Hartley Act, which i had no idea about.
Check out the film Matawan. Based on real events in West Virginia. And that was just one event, and I believe the beginning of years of bloody clashes.
There were essentially wars fought within this country between unions and union-busting agencies (often backed by the US government) like the Pinkertons and Baldwin Felts.
Check out The Battle of Blair Mountain, it's wild stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
It's a real shame to see what states like West Virginia have become. Their union forebearers would be rolling in their graves to see what they've become. It's shameful.
More info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_coal_wars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_United_States
Yep. Almost everywhere already has this. We even get long service leave here in Australia
Probably worth mentioning that many of the countries with 20 days paid vacation have 20 business days of paid vacation, which in practice works out to four weeks. Countries that have a multiple of seven are probably going by calendar day which is essentially the same.
Yeah, I was coming in to gloat that we'd be ahead of Canada if this passed and then I realized..... 10 days is two weeks worth of days. lol.
But hey, having parity would be awesome!
I have 24 days Paid Leaves here in Bulgaria. The thing is: if you do not take them all over the calendar year, they roll over to the next year, but by law the company must keep the cash on hand to pay them out. I was regularly starting the year with over 20 accrued days. And so were several 100s of colleagues. This has gotten so bad and froze so much cash that the company is now giving an extra 2 days if you use all your days before the end of the year. Sweet deal!
In China currently it starts with 18 annual leave days and 12 sick days. Than every year, more annual leave days are added.
Please don't say things to make centrists side with republicans even more overtly than they already do.
Shocking
Here in France I have 35 (not including national holidays).
What fucking century is this?
21st, except in the US where it's the 19th.
Problem is we skipped all those fights last century so it's all catching up to us
In Sweden we got 2 weeks in 1938...
10 days a year is ridiculously few
It is, however, more than none. Which is what some people are getting at the moment.
We just need the law passed so we can work on raising it every year. It's 10 more than we have now
Two weeks is a pathetic amount of leave. I get four here and Australian workers are still pretty cucked by European standards.
Is this like not including sales taxes in prices so they can pretend they’re earning more than elsewhere, even though you have to take unpaid leave just to have a life outside of work at all?
Two weeks is tons better than the zero we have now, though. I'm 51 and the last time I went on vacation was when I was 12 years old. I have never taken vacation as an adult.
It's not pathetic. two weeks would be more than my wildest dreams.
Oh look, something else Israel has that the US doesn't
Germany has 20 required paid vacation days, though way more common are 30 days. Even most low end jobs I have seen provide that amount of vacation days. Though there are surely some shitty companies, which don't adhere to that standard. Ah, and public holidays don't count towards these vacation days.
Spain 1ups that by shifting any national holiday that falls on a weekend to monday or friday.
Isn't that like the only thing the US does properly when it comes to holidays and vacations? At least for federal employees - some employers may decide to be hardasses of course
Good Ol' Bernie, still trying to do nice things for everybody... The world would have been different if he would have been elected.
The man would have needed a new Popemobile.
The BernieWagon®
A Bernie-Go-Round?
All rights reserved.
Australia has 20 but...
Also 10 national paid public holidays, 10 sick/carers leave, 10 domestic violence leave, 12 weeks parental leave + a government paid 6 months parental leave and lastly long service leave of 3 months after 10 years service + a bonus 10 days per year long service leave per year after that.
Not to mention the taxadvantaged employer paid 12% retirement investment account accessible at 60.
Y'all need to join unions.
...domestic violence leave?
Basically, if you are the victim of domestic violence - you’re provided with 2 weeks of paid leave through your workplace, regardless of full-time, part-time, or casual.
This allows them to find emergency accommodation, attend medical/legal appointments, counselling etc.
Workplaces may request some form of documentation, which usually takes the form of a Domestic Violence Order (specific type of temporary restraining order), which can be issued pretty quickly - e.g. within 24hrs, if deemed to have an immediate risk.
In general, workplaces aren’t too demanding on this matter - due in part to the sensitivity of the offence, and also due to the potential of Ombudsman involvement if they make things too difficult.
Yep, time off to leave an abusive partner etc. Part of the government's response to our epidemic of family violence.
:(
Yeah, that one might be a tad embarrassing to call in.
Be embarrassed, or die at the hands of your partner, you choose!
Not sure taking the day off work factors into that. But I meant more using all your other days off and having to call in abused.
If you need to leave an abusive partner, you can't wait until you have accrued the necessary leave to find alternate accommodation, make all the arrangements, and move out. You need to do it NOW.
Work/leave was highlighted by numerous studies and reviews as a hurdle to people leaving abusive relationships. Having access to it is actually kind of a no brainer.
They let you take time off to beat your spouse lol
You think you shoukd be forced to beat your wife on a vacation day?
Yeah the chart is bad, 8 of those days in the UK are national holidays and therefore decided for you.
Plus we're behind on the rest, it's like the chart was sponsored by our government...
Could be worse those, could be American...
Australia has a limit on sick days?
10 paid a year. Some works accrue them continually, some reset it each year, some accrue them but max at 10.
I get 15 paid sick days, after that it's unpaid.
Notice how these charts always manage to fit in tiny European populations but completely erase non-Western OECD members? Centering white, Western nations as the default standard for global progress while ignoring the rest of the world is structural racism disguised as economic research.
Here is a list of the OECD countries that they left out with paid vacation laws: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Türkiye.
But all of those are white western nations as well.
You consider Colombia, Chile, and Costa Rica to be Western White Nations?
Between a quick demographic look up and a map of the world I think so
Sounds like a legit source
I south America not in the west?
Lithuania mentioned!!!
It gets shot down because it's labeled as socialism and all the dipshit right-wingers will praise it then bitch endlessly all year about how they don't get enough vacation time at work
We have more than 20 in Poland. 26 at least. I think You can use up to 28. Plus , obviously sick days, which don't have a limit and more than 10 holidays every year. And You can score an additional 2 every 2 months if You're a blood donor. I've had a week of every 2 months this year and I'm not even through a third of my paid leave.
20 days + 4 weekends =28! This is the European average.
I think you get 20 days until you're 30 (have 10 years of experience total, university counts)?
4 weeks paid vacation needs to be the minimum.
I was going to say that. In Europe we have 5 weeks, often six weeks. But American customers always whine about that in the summer because they are working. :)
The mental brain damage to want to work all your life without a break... I mean sure, it's a business advantage, but I dont feel humans are here to be a business advantage.
When my company reorganized and merged global and US teams, I was waiting for the complaint. And it happened. It was only a matter of time.
Slavery in the US never truly ended, it just expanded and rebranded. The US is basically a giant plantation.
I've done the math and my company if they would quarter down the profit they could provide everyone a couple MONTHS holiday FOR 100.000 employees
AmeriKa will continue to fall behind the modern 1st Class countries who understand what it takes to maintain a stable society. Bernie is 100% correct, but the pedo protectors will not allow anything to reduce the returns for the shareholders.
Damn. I just get unlimited burnout time on.
2 weeks. Is that it? Even in the UK I could do with more time off, 4 day week would be another nice option.
I mean you can always take unpaid vacations, at least with most employers. Like I get wanting more vacation time, but your employer also wants to remain profitable and the more vacation you take, the less you bring in. I'd love it if it was 8 weeks myself, but I don't want to take the paycut that would make it possible.
I feel like this is an area where you can have your cake and eat it too, plenty of developed countries have as much buying power as the United States and do fine with 5 weeks. Dream bigger.
Why are we talking about 2 weeks? The baseline is 4 (UK, where the commenter is from and also same number where I'm from) and to get a meaningful increase from that it should probably be a lot more than 5 weeks.
Americans should obviously be striving for more than 2 weeks but at the very least they're finally getting something guaranteed if this goes through
That it is limited to full time workers is pretty shit because I just know this will further incentivize companies to hire part timers and schedule them just shy of full time status to avoid needing to meet this requirement.
Everyone working two part time jobs at 20-30 hrs so no employer has to pay full time benefits.
But hey, at least we don't pay income tax on tips
Worth noting that even if the law passed, most places still wouldn't let their workers actually use it. This country sucks
Right before their FIVE-week recess, super.
Great, now maybe also do something about companies shitting on part timers as well.
Seeings how pretty much all major companies use hours worked to accrue PTO there is no reason for part timers to not get any.
Unfortunately there are many businesses who hire mostly part-time employees to avoid providing benefits like this.
Which is why other Western countries offer the same benefits to part-time employees on a pro-rata basis.
Work 5 days a week? We give you 20 days annual leave.
Only work 3 days? We give you 12 days annual leave.
Both circumstances result in an employee getting 4 weeks of paid leave a year.
We also let people accrue leave across multiple years, so they can take a 12 week vacation after 3 years if they wanted to.
I've found quite a lot of places don't let you accrue leave, but if they don't carry it over they have to pay you for it instead, so are very eager for you to use all your leave.
It’s a similar thing here in Australia, workplaces actually like well rested employees - it’s almost like they’re more productive!
I tend to only take 2-3 weeks annually, so I organically end up accruing a tonne of time over the years. Some will let you cash out leave over a certain threshold or worst case, it gets paid out in a lump sum when you quit work.
The Finance department don’t like to see too much liability on the balance sheet, so they do try to pester us into taking regular leave. 😅
Tbh, Id much rather have a law force that they use the days. No loopholes, no blackout dates. Everyone, every employee uses them like the mandatory paid lunch.
There is no secret ranking of who didn't take they rate.
It's getting December and you ain't give anybody any time off? Hope you are staffed enough
I am all for it, though I worry that employers will start treating 10 days as both a minimum and a maximum (for regular employees). I expect that the most American workers gets 10 days or less, so this law is going to be good for them and the CEOs who get 52 weeks off per year are going to keep getting that, but there are high-skilled workers who take 3-4 weeks off per year. Their employer is going to standardize on 2 weeks of per year for everyone from the janitor up to the vice president. If the employee tries looking for a job, many companies will have already switched to the 10 day standard and the rest will either follow suit, calling it "matching industry norms", or they will use the extra vacation days as golden handcuffs.
I hope not, but I am a pessimist.
Anyone getting four weeks is in a position to find an employer that will keep them there. You don't get that much time if they aren't competing for workers.
I just don't even want to hear about these anymore until they pass. This shit is all theater. This will not pass. And they know that.
Yeah but this is first time the publicly discussed It's good
i didn't even know the US didn't have this
Companies will often provide some level of leave, but it's not required. Also sick leave is only required by a few states and holidays are only mandatory for government workers.
I can recall a time when I told off for NOT taking holidays and that the company had introduced a policy to ideally take some time off before April, before August and before December.
Most people banked them for Christmastime, but then there was too many people off during the holidays (It was a service provider so it was open 362 days (25/12, 26/12, 1/1 were the only days the business shut except for on-call))
And of course, the longer your tenure, the more days off that you had. Anything that we didn't use in the year would need to be taken within January of the next or you simply lose them.
is it me or hes doing almost doing things that are non-confrontational and no chance of passing.
On one hand its kind of his schtick, and on the other it gets a conversation started, which is the method a lot of congress critters do.
News won't report if you say we should ban cilantro, but you put a bill out there for it? Well thats news, even if it has zero chance of getting anywhere near a actual vote.
Two weeks off that’s nothing. Why make a big deal for two stinking weeks.
This is how America works.
Capitalists grind workers beneath their boots.
Workers finally have enough and push back.
Capitalists offer workers meager concessions that they will try to take away again later.
And it's not just a capitalist/worker dynamic, it plays out elsewhere too, like DNC/progressives or cops/black communities. The Battle of Los Angeles is a great example of this - a black-lead uprising was burning the city down and repatriating goods from capitalists, and it was defused by offering to form a commission which ultimately did nothing. (Not to frame the 'riots' as purely a good thing though, they were disorganized and understandably enraged so some small businesses and innocent bystanders were harmed too. But it's an inevitable result of how the US Empire exploits those who live on the land it stole.)
and if this became a law... everyone would magically become part time workers... all so that corporations would not have to pay out.
So? Then you also fix that problem, you don't get to give up.
I see a lot of theese negative comments on Lemmy, GOP troll farms? Pretty effective I would imagine if you want to keep status quo and your citizens passive.
let me guess. you are a "moderate" nazi unlike Trump's rape squad.
Except for people with contracts or unions, lol.
oh don't worry. democrats and republicans will help their ceo overlords to make unions a felony offense to even mention let alone have them.
Two weeks? That’s it? Sorry Bernie but fuck off.
This needs to be 4 weeks _ minimum_. If the USA can’t match the UK or Germany, then don’t even bother.
This is why the American left keeps losing. The right pushes as hard as they can and takes as much as they can get. The timid left talks themselves down to mediocrity before even starting the fight.
Cutting your nose off to spite your face? That seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
I mean, I'll take two weeks over zero.
Yeah he should have made it 20 days and got 10% congress support.
What a stupid fucking thing to say.