George Steed

Please consider the origins of vacations or time off with pay. This was and still may be one of the inducements used to keep employees. Depending on the organization, if an employee is not present, a replacement is necessary. The business labor cost then doubles. Health insurance is another item that has got out of hand. In general businesses that have low costs are going to stay in business. Businesses with high costs are going to go out of business. High labor costs are now causing businesses to relocate to low labor cost countries. A component of the labor cost is vacation pay. One study I know of has England with large numbers of "one-man" firms. Perhaps these business people wanted the freedom to order their working time. Comments?

Sally

A few comments (I haven't read every post in this enormously long thread) from a Dutch citizen who has spent some time in the US:<BR>- My general impression is that people in the US work much harder than here - I've met several people there who worked on 2, or even 3 jobs! This is almost unthinkable here - in fact, most people I know here work part-time. (Actually, I find it amazing, in view of how hard people seem to work, that there still seems to be so much poverty. I mean, we spent six months in Cambridge, Mass. and you saw people begging in the streets. And generally speaking I noticed that public facilities were 'poor': broken streetlights, litter, badly paved roads etc. Maybe this is because taxes are so low?)<BR>- Vacations are certainly longer here, and the general style of vacationing is different - we go to one, or maybe 2 places for 3 weeks in the summer, and just relax. When Americans vacation in Europe, they seem to want to 'do' Europe as quickly as possible - I get exhausted just reading some of the itineraries on this board!<BR>My husband works very hard, 60 to 70 hours a week. But he can take some 2 months paid leave or so, whenever he likes. However, his job is so demanding that he is unable to get away for more than 10 days or so except in July or August. So what we generally do is take a smaller vacation (10 to 12 days) in January or February, and a bigger one (3 weeks) in July. Works out well for us, and in view of my husband's job he really needs those vacations!<BR>- The US does seem to be a more open society - easier to work your way up from 'rags to riches'. <BR>- Re the general discussion, I do tend to agree with Sjoerd that there are lots of other countries contributing to charity in the world apart from the US (Goed zo Sjoerd, laat je niet afschrikken door de reacties!). <BR>

xxx

I don't know much about the Germans. But, I do know that they don't start work at 5:00 in the morning. Most of them have Sunday off as everything is closed...unlike the states. However, I do know Italy. And, to assume that Italians are hard workers is a huge mistake. They may claim to work as many hours as Americans. But, it is safe to assume that Italians and Americans have a much different view of what actual work is. If Americans consider drinking coffee at the bar, and socializing, work...well then, I guess the Italians do a lot of it.

Me2

In America, more than a week's vacation is called a &quot;lay-off.&quot;<BR>Having lived and worked in Germany for a German company, I can safely say we did not work harder, nor start at 5:am. However, we did have the threat of losing health insurance if we did not take our six weeks off per year. And we did pay HALF our income in taxes and social security and such.<BR>

cool

I think Sally's post seems pretty accurate to me as an American working in Europe at the moment. Europeans are very lucky to have so much vacation time. I really really wish it were the same in the U.S.!

Eric

I'm glad to see this post back and want to comment on prescription drugs. I have insurance and my allergy medicine cost $30 dollars a month for one prescription. I ask what the cost would be without insurance and was told it would be $100 dollars.<BR><BR> I think we (USA) needs a health care system that takes care of all the people.<BR><BR>Just my opinion<BR><BR>

cool

Eric, I totally agree with you. No system is perfect, but I think it's disgraceful that we (the U.S.) don't have a free healthcare system.

xxx

I also agree, we definitely should have a healthcare plan here in America. My husband, thank goodness he has medical coverage from the company he retired, spends about $400 per month for medication. Out of that it costs us $80. I asked the pharmacy one day, what do people who have no medical coverage do. You know what she said – “that they have to make a decision which medicine they would get this month”. These are people who are on SS. Personally, I think it is a disgrace.

EW

I work in a British hospital's pathology department, and I can tell you that the US does not want a &quot;free&quot; system like ours. Even though it's free at the point of care, we still pay 10% of our wages into our National Insurance Contributions to pay for it. For me, that's &pound;250 per month, or not far short of $400. If you use knee/hip replacements as an example, the waiting list is about 3 years. Even for life-threatening heart surgery the wait can be 6 months to a year. Many thousands die whilst waiting. I have to wait a week to see my General Praticioner!<BR>Our lab receives about 3000 samples per day. It is so big that we can never do justice to each sample individually.<BR>As for the original question, I get 30 days leave (plus bank holidays) as I am chief scientist in my department. BUT, I work long hours - including at least one 24 hour shift per week.

American

Oh my goodness, who in America has a 35-40 hour work week? No one I know, for sure. Try 70, and I work for a BRITISH firm!!!! Yikes. In fact, the firm I work for ranked BELOW all the US firms in my market for quality of life. Sign me up for whatever these jobs are with the 35 hour weeks!!!! I get 4 weeks vacation, and um, deserve it, in my opinion.<BR><BR>I'm not obsessed with money; I'm obsessed with survival, and that is what is needed to make it here, and I think most Americans feel the same. Anyone who isn't an American himself and suggests differently is ignorant.

xxx

Exactly.<BR>The trade off isn't an extra week of vacation for a week without pay. That's a trade I'm willing to make.<BR><BR>It's: an extra week of vacation for no job when I come back, and extreme difficulty finding a new job once the potential employer learns I lost the old one for taking too much vacation. That's a high price to pay - and so, yeah, I only take two weeks or less a year.