51–60 of 424 posts
I think this old story is vey relevant here. I have employees that take a lower salary than others, but have up to 7 weeks holiday a year. I'm happy with that. One employee that has 7 weeks holiday has only had 1 day sick in the 6 years I've employed him. -- Sharpen the Saw -- Once upon a time a very strong woodcutter ask for a job in a timber merchant, and he got it. The paid was really good and so were the work con…
I'm a Swedish developer. This year I have 7 weeks of vacation, and I plan to use it all. I normally get the 5 weeks required by law. Last year, I only used 4 of those 5 weeks, so one spilled over to this year. I also got a bonus week of vacation for working a lot of overtime last summer. So that makes 7 weeks.
Also please note that this is paid vacation we're talking about. In Sweden, we have five weeks of vacation by law. And, the right to take four of those weeks consecutively .
It wasn't always like this in Europe. Extended vacation time was one of the many hard-fought rights won by the socialist/trade-unionist movements of the past century throughout the continent. Not even Thatcher dared attacking that right (she dropped a few national holidays here and there, instead). Things didn't turn out quite the same on the other side of the pond, sadly, and this is the result.
That may be true but here, in Europe (esp. Eastern), many people go years without taking more than few days of vacation. One, you're discouraged to take time off -- you can lose your job if you're not "devoted". Two, you have to work over capacity to support yourself and your family.
In addition, unused holidays don't really expire. So if you or your employeer terminates the contract, you have the right to be paid for _all_ unused holidays that accumulated during the period of the contract. That's the reason why most employees force you to really take all of your 5 weeks each year.
Edit: Seems that I was wrong and that unused holidays expire after a few years. Still, each employer I've worked for so far "forced" its employees to really take their 5 weeks of vacation.
The flip side of this is that we have Summer vacation for schools (unlike the rest of the world) and have institutionalized Spring Break for college students. Sadly we see the idea of vacation as being for the very young or the very old who retire.
That’s a shorter (but still quite long) summer vacation. Overall, however, vacation times are similar.
As for spring break, here is the situation at my German university: classes end at July 15 this year, exams end at August 20, the next semester starts at October 1. That’s one month and nearly two weeks when you can be absolutely sure that there is nothing to do for you (at least when you finish your papers in time and don’t have a thesis to write) and probably more depending on when your exams are.
We also get two weeks off for Christmas and there is obviously also a shorter break (about one week and up to one month depending on when your exams are) between winter semester and summer semester (but no other vacations, only federal and state holidays).
I don’t know much about US universities (Is there downtime for students between semesters?) but I do know that spring break certainly doesn’t compare. (One or two weeks? Seriously?)
Usually the only time Americans can take long vacations is between jobs. I wonder how many actually change jobs just for this reason. I asked for 4 consecutive weeks off to travel Europe once at a previous employer (I had worked there 5 years with no more then a week and a half off) and they denied the request. So I found another job and made sure I had a 4 week break between the two.
Well, that's just sad. You do know that the rest of the world is having problems at finding a job at all, or at least getting paid on regular basis? Cry me a river.
Whether you'd be willing to work for my wage is another problem, but I do have 20 days' worth of paid vacations.
Nobody has mentioned the obvious: weak unions.
I live in Chicago, no one around here would accuse the unions of being weak, but vacation time here is no different than in the south.
Unless you mean on a national level (unions pushing for federal reform and what-not) than yes the unions here are weaker, but the U.S. Also tends to be more opposed to national regulations than Europe as well.
I'm wondering how much of it is because people neglect to negotiate their vacation time when changing jobs. Most American workplaces start you out with 2 weeks and then usually add a week or so after so many years of seniority. When you change jobs, how many of you ask for that same amount of vacation time at the new company? Or do you just accept that you're new and don't want to push things by asking for more at th…
I've got a co-worker who negotiated extra time of when he started here (3 weeks instead of the normal 2). Normally, we get an extra week of vacation after 5 years of employment. Unfortunately, they screwed him out of it because he already had 3 weeks, which is the normal amount for someone with 5 years of tenure. :-(
It wasn't always like this in Europe. Extended vacation time was one of the many hard-fought rights won by the socialist/trade-unionist movements of the past century throughout the continent. Not even Thatcher dared attacking that right (she dropped a few national holidays here and there, instead). Things didn't turn out quite the same on the other side of the pond, sadly, and this is the result.