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.
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.)
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.
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.”
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.
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.
Yep. Almost everywhere already has this. We even get long service leave here in Australia
What fucking century is this?
Problem is we skipped all those fights last century so it’s all catching up to us
21st, except in the US where it’s the 19th.
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.
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.
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.
Note. There’s no such thing as limited sick days here. But if we’re sick for more than 30 days (or something like that), you’ll get paid by the government instead, and the rate is something like $20 pr hour instead of your normal pay.
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!
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
(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.
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.
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.
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
That’s exactly it. Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Oh yeah, how many billionaires with doomsday shelters and yachts fleets does Frances have?
Check mate, frenchies.
(Goes to die in a ditch)
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 look, something else Israel has that the US doesn’t
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.
In China currently it starts with 18 annual leave days and 12 sick days. Than every year, more annual leave days are added.
Damn. I just get unlimited burnout time on.
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. 😅
