We have no federally mandated vacation, and we take fewer holidays than workers in other developed nations.
They have six weeks of federally mandated vacation, free university tuition, nursing care, and childcare.
Supported by Hotels.com -- which presumably sees a business opportunity in an America where more people have mandated vacation time -- the goal of the Vacation Equality Project is simple: Give every American employee much-needed and much-deserved time off (making sure they use it is another story).
introduced a bill this week that would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act by mandating vacation time for workers.
Why is are we the only developed country without universal health care, tuition free public college, mandated paid vacations and paid child leave, among other benefits, all major indicators of social well-being?
Launched on July 16, the campaign is hoping to gather 100,000 signatures by next Friday, August 15, in order to force the issue to the top of Congress's priority list -- a group that is currently taking advantage of their mandated month of vacation.
Now that President Bush has returned to Washington (Week in Review, Sept. 2), he should suggest the legislative step of mandating longer vacations for American workers in the manner of most Western European countries.
Basically, we live in a country that doesn't mandate paid vacations or paid leave of any type for its workers.
That might seem innocuous enough, but when Ricardo Echegaray, head of the Administración Federal de Ingresos Públicos, the national tax agency, said last Friday, "We prefer that people stay and spend their summers inside the country," he set Argentines on edge with fears of state-mandated vacation destinations.
OK, that may be a stretch, but it at least looked like they had found a player they could sell as a potential Next Tom Brady to one of the many quarterback-starved teams once the Actual Tom Brady returned from his four week league-mandated vacation.
In European Union countries, where a minimum of four weeks of paid vacation is mandated, companies take this training much more seriously, he says.
