NPR Planet Money just did a podcast on this a week ago https://www.npr.org/2023/08/17/1194467863/europe-vacation-holiday-paid-time-off https://www.npr.org/2023/

NPR Planet Money just did a podcast on this a week ago https://www.npr.org/2023/08/17/1194467863/europe-vacation-holiday-paid-time-off https://www.npr.org/2023/08/17/1194467863/europe-vacation-ho... They interview MIT professor Tom Kochan who says that in the 1930s U.S unions like the AFL actually pushed against federally guaranteed worker benefits like paid vacation because then there'd be less need for unions. Other benefits Americans never got were federally guaranteed health insurance and pensions. To quote the podcast transcript [1] "The big three - pensions, health insurance, time off through vacations - were left off the table. Instead, we got collective bargaining rights, which basically say we can bargain and negotiate with our individual employers for pension, health care and vacation. Now, we should say that the U.S. is also known for not passing these work benefits because of racism. A bunch of people in the U.S. back then didn't want Black people, for example, to get these benefits, so no one got them. But in Europe, everyone gets the big three - vacation, pension, health care - as a right. Vacation started spreading in Europe in the 1920s and '30s, and health care came in waves in the 1940s, '70s and '80s. And maybe this is why European countries started cutting their hours after 1979, but not the U.S. Like, maybe Europeans were, like, OK, we're getting all these benefits, plus we're just generally getting richer. Maybe work is not so important anymore. But when you do have to pay for these things, like we do in the U.S. - maybe that's why work is so important here." [1] https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1194467863 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1194467863