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How much vacation time do you get?

How much vacation time do you get each year?

  • None

    Votes: 6 9.0%
  • 1 week or less

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2 weeks

    Votes: 6 9.0%
  • 3 weeks

    Votes: 11 16.4%
  • 4 weeks

    Votes: 10 14.9%
  • More than 4 weeks

    Votes: 34 50.7%

  • Total voters
    67
No offense meant, but why do you Americans let your employers get away with that crap? Why not gang up against them and organize nationwide strikes to get at least humane if not decent working conditions for everyone? Over here in Europe it worked. I see no reason why it shouldn't in the US. It's just a matter of sticking together.
 
No offense meant, but why do you Americans let your employers get away with that crap? Why not gang up against them and organize nationwide strikes to get at least humane if not decent working conditions for everyone? Over here in Europe it worked. I see no reason why it shouldn't in the US. It's just a matter of sticking together.

We're too busy working to organize strikes.
 
We're too busy working to organize strikes.
LOL that's of course a major obstacle :D
A toast to all hard-working barkeepers! *raises box of whiskey truffles* <- for lack of something more appropriate


Welcome to the board, CrazyBruce! While we can't give you a vacation we can always cheer you up and offer a sympathetic shoulder. *hugs*
 
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No offense meant, but why do you Americans let your employers get away with that crap? Why not gang up against them and organize nationwide strikes to get at least humane if not decent working conditions for everyone? Over here in Europe it worked. I see no reason why it shouldn't in the US. It's just a matter of sticking together.

There are many obstacles to organizing, most of which result in you simply being fired before you can form a union. Unions have also suffered from decades of bad PR, which has resulted in most Americans being deeply skeptical of unions and worker organization in general. Gee, I wonder who that benefits!
 
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Goes to show how important solidarity and good PR managers are.
Btw, Germany is desperately seeking well-trained workers and specialists. 25-30 days vacation at a fulltime job, health insurance (including dental), a full 3 months notice (after a trial period of usually 3-6 months; within the trial period it's 1-2 weeks) and unlimited sick leave. How about you all simply come over here? We could have the biggest TrekBBS con ever! Food is good and our beer a good deal stronger than US brews.
 
Don't think it isn't tempting! There's a significant chance I'll be living somewhere in Western Europe in a few years--hopefully Scotland.
 
No offense meant, but why do you Americans let your employers get away with that crap? Why not gang up against them and organize nationwide strikes to get at least humane if not decent working conditions for everyone? Over here in Europe it worked. I see no reason why it shouldn't in the US. It's just a matter of sticking together.

In the UK it seems workers rights are going backwards.
 
The US work environment seems more like Ferengi business practices where those up in the ladder kick those below them and those on the lower end endure it in the hopes to somehow make it to the top and then be able to kick those down below.

Then i again i live in socialist utopia and wouldn't have it any other way :p
 
No offense meant, but why do you Americans let your employers get away with that crap?

They have money.

We don't.

So, they hold all of the power, especially when they can mostly just fire us for thin reasons and hire someone else who won't cause problems. Also money helps them lobby politicians to prevents changes in laws that will give workers more rights and benefits. (See: The problems with making sure minimum wage is also a LIVING wage.)

Our system, sadly, is to ensure that the people who are rich don't have to do anything to help those of who are not rich have a living wage or can get a break from work for a week without having to take a hit on our budget.

And hey, if it means the CEO of the company we work for can buy that third home in the Cayman Islands then, God Bless America!
 
Having reached the five-year mark at my "new" job last December, I now get four weeks vacation. Also, two personal days and the usual holidays. I'm not sure how much sick time I get, but it's certainly sufficient-- I pretty much only use it when I have a doctor's appointment. They've also been very generous with bereavement on the two occasions that I've had a death in the family. They are also pretty good about incentives; I get bonuses in the form of American Express cheques every month.

I was at my last job for fourteen years and got five weeks vacation, holidays, and sick time. I was salaried at that one. I also got to cash out a couple weeks vacation every year, which came in handy, since I was too busy to use it all. No other incentives, though (except the incentive to quit, because of the legal department's penchant for covering things up instead of dealing with them).

Both of these jobs were non profits.

No offense meant, but why do you Americans let your employers get away with that crap? Why not gang up against them and organize nationwide strikes to get at least humane if not decent working conditions for everyone? Over here in Europe it worked. I see no reason why it shouldn't in the US. It's just a matter of sticking together.
We do have Unions that do that, but not everyone is in a Union. Also, Unions have a tendency to become their own worst enemy as they grow in size and power-- they can be just as unreasonable as the corporations.
 
hmm, that's a very good point. I suppose that even with modern technology it's not really possible to coordinate that many people. Just like real democracy - in the classical Greek sense - works well in a city but can't function on a whole continent, our comperatively small unions work efficient where ours tend to split.
Maybe there's a critical mass for all kinds of social connections (for a marriage it's usually 3 :D while for religions it appears to be a few hundred thousand. Unions seem to be somewhere in between both margins.
 
No offense meant, but why do you Americans let your employers get away with that crap? Why not gang up against them and organize nationwide strikes to get at least humane if not decent working conditions for everyone? Over here in Europe it worked. I see no reason why it shouldn't in the US. It's just a matter of sticking together.

In the UK it seems workers rights are going backwards.

And infact, they're not, same as crime stats, it seems that crime is going up, but in fact, according to the states, it's not.

As long as the UK remains part of the European Union, workers rights are protected.
 
wasn't it Churchill (a British politician :p) who said "I only trust those statistics I forged myself"? :D
*ducks and runs*
 
^I never knew we had a politician called Churchill here and if indeed he said that, I'm failing to see why you felt the need to refer to something he said, potentially fifty plus years ago regarding, you know, crime stats.
 
No offense intended, dear. I just meant to pull your leg since you appeared to be so very patriotic.
My fault, entirely - I should have remembered that most people believe that Germans have no sense of humour and hence wouldn't expect us to perform it.


I am not as optimistic as you are, concerning the EU's influence on social laws. In my experience whenever there are different opinions between countries, their politicians tend to agree on the minimum requirements instead of finding a decent compromise.
Also, one must take into account the very strong economic lobby. Whenever the employers announce that a change (or keeping the current high standards) would result in them unfortunately being forced to sack a handfull of employees, the EU politicians will very quickly withdraw their opposition. It's of course a form of blackmail, but sadly it works very well. (Even though everyone is well aware that these workers would be sacked anyway, to be replaced by machines or cheap workers in China to raise the profit).

I'm convinced that in the long run on the working front we'll get the same situation as in the public health system: gradual change to the smallest common factor ( i.e. to the worse)
 
I drive a school bus. It is technically part time because we are not guaranteed 40 hours, we make that up with field trips and extra runs. My district divides our pay into 2 checks a month over 12 months, so we get a check thru the summer, even if we don't work. If I chose not to work summer, I would have 3 months vacation, technically.

CCC.
 
It's tough to give a complete answer because it's unnecessarily complicated. I get Family/Personal Leave I can use for anything, but I'm more likely to use for things like dentist appointments than vacation and only take a couple of hours at a time. I think it comes out to about four days (I think the exact count is 32 hours of family/personal and 64 hours of sick leave).

Then I get four hours of vacation time for every pay period (half month) worked. I've worked three months, so I get about 24 hours (so three days). After a year, I'll have about a week. I think 190 hours (23 days or so) can roll over so that's a sort of maximum I can burn all at once (if I do the math correctly, that means I have to take a vacation at least once every two years or else I lose time). Of course, I can combine it with Family/Personal for a little more time.

Overall, it adds up to a decent amount if I do it right, but it's overly bureaucratic and can be inflexible at times. My personal view is that, if I get my work done, nobody should care how many hours it took. Since I get paid a salary, I don't even like the fact that my clients get billed for my time either. If I'm prepared and doing a good job, that should be the end of the discussion regardless of whether I work 20 hours a week or 60. But it's a government job, so they don't like that. I'd also point out that, in my kind of job, there's no way I can get away with taking off 23 days in a row from work because there are things that'll crop up that are too important.
 
Well, yep, it's official. On October 1st when our fiscal year begins I get 5-weeks of vacation! Whoooo!!! Every 10 weeks I can take a week off! W00T!!!
 
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