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Why is it that the average employee in the USA gets only a weeks paid leave
?
Does it boil down to some US employees being less efficient and therefore not worth taking care of them by making sure they get a decent break from the grind ?
Or is it that US employers are a touch mean with the time they are prepared to pay for a worker not to be doing his/her job.
The average in my country would be four weeks holiday pay with my own lads on six weeks leave.
Or do American employees prefer not to have paid leave ?
It's called greed! Employees here are treated like disposable diapers not like assets to a company unfortunately. We have friends overseas, and American friends who now live overseas and are amazed at how they're treated there. Unfortunately here unless YOU'RE the employer, you have no chance at being treated with respect.
Saying that you decided to take the job and should just put up with zero vacation time is a really silly argument. The average worker really has very little power to demand such things. Every other worker in the industrialized world(even China)has paid vacation time. They didn't get it because they demanded it from an employer. They have it because it is mandated by their governments. It is mandated by their governments because the people demand it. It is considered a basic human right of all workers. And employers want it too. That last part is important.
I will agree with you on the word greed though. It's not greed. It's partly our work culture which has been hijacked by this idea that working more hours means you are being more efficient. And its our bizarre resistance to having the government set such a policy.
Employers don't want to pay employees for time off having fun. Even if they did, they probably couldn't afford it. Due to the failing economy, outsourcing of jobs, and the influx of immigrants willing to do more for less money and little or no benefits, Americans are feeling more pressure than ever to work and compete with international economies and workers.
Why is it that the average employee in the USA gets only a weeks paid leave
?
Does it boil down to some US employees being less efficient and therefore not worth taking care of them by making sure they get a decent break from the grind ?
Or is it that US employers are a touch mean with the time they are prepared to pay for a worker not to be doing his/her job.
The average in my country would be four weeks holiday pay with my own lads on six weeks leave.
Or do American employees prefer not to have paid leave ?
Where did you get your numbers? I believe the average in the US is 10 days.
So, he didn't believe it was somebody else's duty to provide it to him? No wonder he's successful.
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(The following not directed at Ultrarunner)
Going back to vacation days, most blue collar workers get 2 vacation days a week for 52 weeks equaling 104 vacation days a year.
That's right of the 365 days in the year, the vast majority of blue collar American jobs START with more than 25% of those as holidays.
I wonder how many days a year the average farmer got off in the in the 1930's.
Out of the 365 days in the year, how many days should a person be entitled to take off?
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In my neck of the woods, those 2 days off per week are called a weekly break.
A weekly break not the same thing as a vacation. Do you think taking weekly breaks reeks of entitlement ?
There needs to be a union comeback of sorts before this gets really out of hand. People forget that unions were once very important in terms of protecting and upholding workers' rights.
My first job out of college was in a Union Shop... I had the chance to work with seasoned journeymen in a well run Tool and Die shop.
I did not leave the Union... the Union left us... none of those shops are around today... manufacturing basically left the SF Bay Area.
One of the biggest benefits of a Union Shop is everyone knew their responsibilities and if you were asked to stay late or come in on a Saturday... you were compensated.
The downside is labor problems from outside could put us on strike... the entire time I was there... we had good relationship with management...
I seriously think all major corporations' HR managers come together for an annual conference where they agree to fix the markets. We get more and more screwed over every year, but en masse.
There are actually companies who do compensation comparisons and distribute them to their clients, so employers know exactly what other companies are paying for each job. The numbers are low, high, median, average, and benefits. Corporations are so organized it doesn't even look like collusion, but of course, unions are evil. Without collective bargaining, you are indeed screwed.
In my neck of the woods, those 2 days off per week are called a weekly break.
A weekly break not the same thing as a vacation. Do you think taking weekly breaks reeks of entitlement ?
Not at all, but I do believe complaining about not getting a month off does.
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