5 ms·

Nobody has mentioned the obvious: weak unions.

• kgermino 15y ago
  I'm not sure how much that has to do with it. 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.
  • yxhuvud 15y ago
    Here in Sweden the government mostly only legislated what the unions and the employer organizations already had agreed to. That went on throughout the 40's to the 70's. At that point the state legislated some things that had no prior agreement and then progress basically stopped.
  • r00fus 15y ago
    Considering most vacation law is set at the national level, yes, weak union power at the national level results in the situation we have here.
• steauengeglase 15y ago
  I have a feeling that there is a bit more to it than that. In America it is fairly common for employers tack on a little more vacation time every year for both salary and hourly employees. It isn't too terribly odd to have 1 to 1.5 months off a year after working for someone for 5 to 10 years, but Americans seldom stay at the same job for very long. Either you go off for greener pastures, quit out of frustration, get laid off or simply resign because they fear that prospective employers won't hire you because you stayed at one place for too long. Deep down, I think we have a serious fear of being considered lazy by our peers.
  • michaelchisari 15y ago
    It isn't too terribly odd to have 1 to 1.5 months off a year after working for someone for 5 to 10 years I would actually say that that's very odd, except in very specialized fields.
  • pnathan 15y ago
    The stepped-by-seniority approach is how my current employer has it. I'm not sure how I feel about it.