On the issue of paid annual leave

The figures in a 2007 report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) are stark. It looked at 21 of the richest countries in the world, and found that only one, the US, does not impose a legal mandate on employers to provide time off.

I may have lived in Britain for 25 years but I'm an American by birth, self-employed, and so after nine days away, I'm back in harness, ready for action.

Most of my work this week involves organizing a lecture tour in the US in the autumn. It may be the last week of summer in the land of my birth but almost everybody I need to be in touch with in America is at their desk sounding harassed as ever.

Americans do get paid annual leave, but for most wage earners it is subject to so many different calculations based on seniority and how much you earn, it can only be described as miserly.

In other words, it is a privilege to be earned rather than a normal part of compensation.

Nine days of annual leave is what the average American accrues during the course of a year. So you have to be at your job for 12 months before you begin to get even that amount.

If you figure that folks might take a day or two at Christmas, maybe Thanksgiving, and keep a day or two in the bank for a family emergency, what you're left with come the good weather is a week of vacation if you're lucky.

The difference between American attitudes to vacation and those of Britons and others is hard to explain. I have worked for wages on both sides of the Atlantic and the experience is broadly comparable. Yet no British worker -- nor most British employers -- would accept such little vacation entitlement.

Holidays as part of compensation are one of the small, subtle things that keep a workplace happy. Happy workers are productive workers in ways that can't be measured statistically.

Whenever citing Americans' acceptance of the longer hours they work or their lack of paid leave, the cliche is to say it goes back to the country's Puritan heritage or the Protestant work ethic.

The people I have worked with in a variety of jobs -- I wasn't always a journalist -- would have liked nothing more than a guarantee of 20 days of paid holiday a year. But they have been increasingly afraid to ask for it directly and way too afraid to come together and demand it as a group.

It is easy enough to get fired in the US, and when people have a job they tend not to want to make waves.

It's a shame really. In a country where economic insecurity is resulting in a disturbingly aggressive public debate -- disturbing, at least, to one American expat -- it would probably be a good thing for employers to start paying their workers to take extra chill time.

The benefit to society would be immediate because the thing is, guaranteed paid vacations don't take a lot of getting used to. For all their pride in working longer hours with no vacation than anyone else, I think Americans could adjust very quickly to having paid down time.

Take the case of a colleague who worked for the International Herald Tribune in Paris on assignment from New York. Over lunch he told me he was taking the following week off. It was March, not vacation season, and I asked him why he was taking it then.

He told me he worked under French employment rules and was legally obliged to take his vacation allocation. He said he couldn't use it all up in the summer, as there were too many weeks he had to take.

So he was grabbing some time out of season. He seemed so relaxed and happy I let him pick up the tab for lunch.

Anyway, things aren't likely to be getting better in the US. In the current economic climate, where people are losing their jobs in droves, if they are lucky enough to find new employment they will go to the bottom of the seniority list and have to accrue vacation days from the beginning. My guess is that the next CEPR analysis will show Americans having less paid holiday than ever.

JJS: One way to add vacation days is to mandate it by law. A less political, more fundamental way is to realize that not all your income must come from your labor (or capital); some of it must come from the rental value of your region’s land.

People pay lots for land, resources, EM spectrum, ecosystem services, and government-granted privileges -- but to whom? If we directed much of that immense flow into the pockets of everyone, and did not tax our productive efforts -- which is the policy of geonomics -- then what?

Just imagine. We could work as much or as little as we liked, enjoy flexible schedules and a shorter workweek -- and not even have to worry about government telling bosses how many days to liberate workers.

Also see:

There is an American movement for relaxation
http://www.progress.org/2008/timeoff.htm

Not sharing society's surplus creates problems
http://www.progress.org/2008/overwork.htm

Millions seek less work, a few win enormous pay
http://www.progress.org/2008/salaries.htm

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On the issue of paid annual leave

Would more holiday be good for America?

by Michael Goldfarb

On the issue of paid annual leave Would more holiday be good for America?

by Michael Goldfarb

On the issue of paid annual leave

Would more holiday be good for America?