Fighting for the right to relax
There are laws on the books in 127 countries mandating vacation time for workers. But not in the U.S., where a lot of folks find they just can't afford to escape the grind in a competitive market. Wren Elhai reports.
On the beach in Waveland, Mississippi. (Flickr/szlea)
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Lisa Napoli: One thing that might make people less in need of the hospital is more vacation time. But one in four American workers don't get any time off paid — and of course, people here work more any in other industrialized nations.
Wren Elhai reports some are saying there oughta be a law.
Wren Elhai: Vacations are in trouble. Polls say people are taking shorter trips and even when they are away, most are still checking in at work through e-mail or voicemail.
Joe Robinson: What's happened in recent years is that work ethic has morphed into an overwork ethic.
Joe Robinson is on the board of Take Back Your Time, a group campaigning for a federal law that would require businesses to give employees 15 days of paid vacation.
Robinson: Without that protection these days in the volatile economy, people are afraid to go on a trip for fear that they might be replaced by the time they get home, or somebody might pass them while they're gone.
A hundred and twenty-seven countries have vacation laws and workers in Europe get up to six weeks off. But businesses warn a U.S. vacation law would carry a huge cost for companies. And many say competition already does the trick — generous benefits attract better employees.
In Washington, I'm Wren Elhai for Marketplace.
