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.
Part time and contractors should be included, not just FTE.
And it should be 4 weeks. To make up for all that "productivity" we already put in without time off.
I think this is stupid. We need the bill to be way more aggressive, ambitious, and inclusive.
Here's what needs to be happen for this bill to bring meaningful change:
Now THIS is a serious bill. It guarantees a generous 42 workdays (20 vacation + 5 sick time + 5 personal days + 12 holidays) worth of paid time off annually which finally puts this country not just on on par with the rest of the developed world, but ahead. If the US is to serve as the leader of the free world, this is how it has to be done. This on top of the mandatory employment protections and extra paid time off for specific scenarios, makes this a truly worker friendly country. This kind of bill would increase happiness, improve health, and reduce stress for hundreds of millions of people.
Now, I'm not naive, I know Republicans and corporate Democrats will try to water this down. However, even if we only end up getting 2/3 or even 1/2 of the benefits and guarantees on this bill then that's still a huge win. You have to start negotiations from a high a place so you'll end up with something that's at least acceptable. What Bernie proposed is starting from a low place to appease people who are genuinely greedy and apathetic to the point of being evil. You can't do that. You have to hit them hard and rally the people on your side. People will whine about me letting perfect be the enemy of good, but I'm not. I'm against letting mediocrity stop us from achieving anything meaningful. If the Democrats did less performative shit and focus on real change like my hypothetical expanded bill, they would sweep the GOP into oblivion.
And this radical plan would just bring the USA to the established standards of the developed world.
Actually, if the US offered 42 paid days off a year as in my hypothetical bill, it would rank first in the developed world alongside Monaco who also offers 42 paid days off. Also most countries in the developed world don't mandate things like personal days, bereavement, or paid time off for mandatory civic duties. For the few countries that do, it's very limited.
For example, a couple of countries in the Balkans offer 7 days of paid bereavement time per year, and that's the highest in the world. Most countries offer only a couple of days or nothing at all. So offering 10 days for every loved that passes away in a single year would make this the most the most generous paid bereavement leave in the world.
Still though, we currently have nothing so anything would be nice at this point.
I like your plan. We should create a website that lists those things we want instead of letting politicians make shit up for us.
We really should. It's up to us organize and push change. Our complacency is what brought us to this point. We have to be active and demand our rights.
It's again and again baffling how backwards the US are. We've had four weeks minimum since before I was born, and I'm an ageing millennial
Australia has 20 but...
Also 10 national paid public holidays, 10 sick/carers leave, 10 domestic violence leave, 12 weeks parental leave + a government paid 6 months parental leave and lastly long service leave of 3 months after 10 years service + a bonus 10 days per year long service leave per year after that.
Not to mention the taxadvantaged employer paid 12% retirement investment account accessible at 60.
Y'all need to join unions.
...domestic violence leave?
Yep, time off to leave an abusive partner etc. Part of the government's response to our epidemic of family violence.
Basically, if you are the victim of domestic violence - you’re provided with 2 weeks of paid leave through your workplace, regardless of full-time, part-time, or casual.
This allows them to find emergency accommodation, attend medical/legal appointments, counselling etc.
Workplaces may request some form of documentation, which usually takes the form of a Domestic Violence Order (specific type of temporary restraining order), which can be issued pretty quickly - e.g. within 24hrs, if deemed to have an immediate risk.
In general, workplaces aren’t too demanding on this matter - due in part to the sensitivity of the offence, and also due to the potential of Ombudsman involvement if they make things too difficult.
Yeah, that one might be a tad embarrassing to call in.
Be embarrassed, or die at the hands of your partner, you choose!
Not sure taking the day off work factors into that. But I meant more using all your other days off and having to call in abused.
Great, now maybe also do something about companies shitting on part timers as well.
Seeings how pretty much all major companies use hours worked to accrue PTO there is no reason for part timers to not get any.
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.
Tbh, Id much rather have a law force that they use the days. No loopholes, no blackout dates. Everyone, every employee uses them like the mandatory paid lunch.
There is no secret ranking of who didn't take they rate.
It's getting December and you ain't give anybody any time off? Hope you are staffed enough
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. 😅
10 days a year is ridiculously few
It is, however, more than none. Which is what some people are getting at the moment.
i didn't even know the US didn't have this
Companies will often provide some level of leave, but it's not required. Also sick leave is only required by a few states and holidays are only mandatory for government workers.
Crazy that we're fighting to achieve some of the lowest time-off standards in the developed world.
Tbf, it's a minimum value. Then the average will be forced to be higher, because employers still need to compete to have some postions filled.
My issue is the question on the definition of "full time position". I'm assuming 30hr/week lime health insurance. We already have a problem of employers refusing to let employees work more than 25hr/week to avoid the additional costs associated.
I think the bill needs a provision that part-time has equivalent requirements based on yearly hours to close that loophole
That's what they said about minimum wage. It'll go up but the shit is still $7 or $2 if you're unlucky.
Good Ol' Bernie, still trying to do nice things for everybody... The world would have been different if he would have been elected.
The man would have needed a new Popemobile.
The BernieWagon®
A Bernie-Go-Round?
All rights reserved.
"Rise in the number of part time employees surges as employers exploit this one loophole."
The jobs that are easy to part time to avoid benefits are already doing so. This doesn't really move the needle on that.
Though, it would be a good thing to address that at some point.
What should happen is part-time employees should receive the same leave, proportional to the actual amount of time/days worked.
Didn't this already happen under Obamacare?
A bunch of service sector employers tried to schedule their staff at under 32 hours while still squeezing them for 40+ hours of work. Everyone hated the system, because it continued to leave the onus of health care on individual employers, while private premiums climbed. And then the courts + Trump Admin defanged any effective enforcement.
What a great system. So glad we weren't simply covering everyone with Medicaid by default.
Notice how these charts always manage to fit in tiny European populations but completely erase non-Western OECD members? Centering white, Western nations as the default standard for global progress while ignoring the rest of the world is structural racism disguised as economic research.
Here is a list of the OECD countries that they left out with paid vacation laws: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Türkiye.
It gets shot down because it's labeled as socialism and all the dipshit right-wingers will praise it then bitch endlessly all year about how they don't get enough vacation time at work
A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
Our Goals