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[–] 127 points 3 years ago (20 children)

What the fuck is wrong with 34% of Americans?

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  • [–] 21 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    I think there’s a lot of good old moralization going on out there. «Young people are getting lazy» etc. Especially from old rich people who got everything handed to them.

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    [–] 60 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (3 children)

    Are there 34% of Americans who own businesses?

    Edit: math before coffee

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  • [–] 21 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    I work at a semiconductor fab in Portland Oregon, we get 5 weeks paid vacation. There''s a fairly large group of my coworkers who never use their vacation or sicktime out of principal.

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  • [–] 29 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Only because it's not a law. In Germany, it's usual to get 30 days of vacation, 20 are legal minimum. Your employer is required to make sure, you actually take at least 20 days and can be fined otherwise.

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  • [–] 16 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    The government forcing you to relax and have fun, or else, is wonderfully absurd. Feels like a paradox to be honest.

    Our government doesn't care about us beyond how much value we can produce for the Oligarchs. The exception being certain natural disasters. Even then, how much they care is dependent on whether it gets national coverage, or international coverage.

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    [–] 51 points 3 years ago (6 children)

    66% of Americans will not change their voting habits or make any effort to get what they want.

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    [–] 40 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    I really hate the term "vacation days." I'm not going to Disneyland everytime I'm out of the office. Most of the time its stuff like having the HVAC technician over during their 4-hour service call window; taking my family member to have surgery; recovering from the flu/covid; taking a mental health day or catch-up day for weekday-only errands.

    This might be where some of the missing 34% are not agreeing for more days. The label is part of the problem. Hell I want more vacation days so that I CAN squeeze an actual vacation in there.

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    [–] 37 points 3 years ago* (7 children)

    The USA had a chance to start again and get so many things right. So why are they so backwards with some things?

    We've had legally-protected paid leave in the UK for almost a century now. Granted, we were the first in the world, but most of Europe and many other countries now have similar protections. Many of which are more generous than the UK's.

    That's not to mention the myriad of other laws and protections covering unfair dismissal (the "at will" system is fucking dystopian, sorry), a years paid maternity leave, statutory sick pay, mandatory employer pension contributions, working time regulations and mandatory redundancy pay. All of which have no federally-enforced equivalent.

    I'm honestly a bit shocked that only 66% support PTO. Surely it's a no-brainer?

    Is it a size thing? Is the idea of looking out for each other just untenable in such a large, diverse place?

    I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a place where 34% of people have such an individualistic "I've got mine" mentality, that they don't even support mechanisms that virtually every other developed country collectively agrees is the fucking minimum needed in order to live reasonable existence.

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  • [–] 16 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    US has PTO, it is just much less than Europe.

    The reason there are people who don’t support it is because of conservative shame culture. If you aren’t rich, it is because you are lazy. They don’t want to take anything away from the rich because they earned it and deserve it. If that means the worker suffers, then the worker should just work harder so they can be rich too.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago

    The US had a strong labor movement before the 2nd world war and into the 1950s when union membership was at its highest and the middle class was thriving and wealth inequality was a fraction of what it is today. What killed it was the Cold war and the spectre of communism which was used by conservatives (there were conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans back then) as a bludgeon to effectively kill the labor movement over the following decades until Reagan finally put a stake through its heart in the 80s.

    That's the short version anyway. There's obviously a lot more to it.

    In any case, the good news is that a lot of people seem to be waking up and demanding change. Union membership is on the rise as are other encouraging signs. I'm way too jaded to be optimistic about it, but I'm not as pessimistic as I once was. My own union has won two strikes in the last 5 years, for example.

    On the flipside, the left has managed to pretty thoroughly alienate a huge chunk of blue collar workers who should be their natural constituency, so that's not great either.

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    [–] 36 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Well they'd best join a union then, because those cunts upstairs aren't just going to give it to them.

    Although personally I'd rather work through August just to avoid millions of families with kids everywhere. Holidays are so expensive at that time of year.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    The way the law works here is you get five weeks vacation every year and have a right (but not an obligation) to take four of those consecutive between June and August. You must however take four weeks of vacation every year, the rest you can save for up to five years (before you have to take them as well).

    Oh, and to really blow your mind, if you get sick during vacation, those count as sick days and you get the vacation back.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago

    I hope that this example can show that more humane treatment of workers is attainable and realistic. We were not given these rights by benevolent overlords; our parents, grandparents etc. fought for them, and so can you. Unionize!

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago*

    Although personally I’d rather work through August just to avoid millions of families with kids everywhere. Holidays are so expensive at that time of year.

    Here in Denmark

    in most places at least, you can choose the times you want vacation. Some places to "force" their employees to take 3 weeks during june - august... but then you still got 3 other weeks you can sprinkle around the year. (a lot of other places dont care)

    and yes, i know a lot of people who spend their main vacations in may, or september. My mother mostly travels in the off-months (hotels, plane tickets etc, are also cheaper)

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  • [–] 29 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Start voting for the people that subscribe to those ideals

    Stop voting for idiot billionaires that are against those things

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  • [–] 21 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    Who could be against more free time!? The remaining 34% must think granting workers more vacation time is tantamount to communism.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago*

    I bet a good number of those people are the ones who get lots of vacation time already and are just pulling others down because they want to be treated better than average. It's like how there's people who oppose raising min wage because "they don't want burger flippers to make the same pay as they do". Crabs in a bucket mentality.

    There's a lot of Americans who sadly think that way. We see it with the student loan forgiveness efforts, too. They can't be happy with others getting nice things unless they themselves are still somehow getting better things. To not mince words, they lack empathy and are selfish.

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    [–] 17 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Now what percent want to fully be in Europe?

    Because fuck what America is today.

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    [–] 10 points 3 years ago (8 children)

    How many PTO days do European's get a year? I'd like to compare to where I'm at after starting a new job here in the US (US native).

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  • [–] 13 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    UK.

    28 days PTO plus bank holidays.

    28 days full-pay self-certificate sick leave.

    6 months full pay with Dr's cert, beyond that 50% pay for 24 months.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 years ago (10 children)

    20-30 paid days depending on country and factors like your seniority.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    Netherlands hete

    . Sick leave, unlimited (first 2 days are at your expense, the rest is payed in some degree).

    . Pto (zorgverlof, care time) so you can take care of your kid, yourself, mom, whatever, unlimited but it's either unpayed or you use vacation days for that. Can not be refused by boss.

    .Vacation days, minimum of 22 (some jobs get 37 by law) to be spent on pto, vacation, a day to the zoo, whatever.

    .Overtime (if your boss agrees) is turned into either more vacation days or payed at 100% or more. Very subject to the type of job.

    There is A LOT of information on this, and this barely scratches the surface, but this is what you can expect here

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    [–] 8 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    What the hell is a “vacation”? I end up having to use all my PTO for days I’m sick or if I need to go to an appointment or my kids are home sick.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    PTO is such a weird thing from the outside. Why don't you just strike and set everything on fire? No need to vote to get human rights...

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    While the average American is lucky to get 11 vacation days from their employer each year

    Doesn't this also decrease if you get sick?

    I got properly ill the day before I went on holiday, and was out for about a week. All those sick days didn't count against my vacation days.

    Furthermore, my vacation days are (to an extend) transferable, which meant I had 31 vacation days this year. That just seems normal policy here (25 vacation days is fairly common in mid-range jobs).

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