UNITED STATES FALLS SHORT ON PAID VACATION TIME FOR WORKERS

    When it comes to paid vacation time, the United States is at the bottom of the list of countries that provide paid time off for their workers. Our workers in this country have very little paid vacation time compared with European countries. Here in the United States there is no law that states an employer has to guarantee you paid vacation time. Many employers do offer paid time off, but there are many American workers who don't have any paid time off. I would think as an employer, you would want to reward your hard working employees by giving them paid time off to spend with their families. It stands to reason that a well rested employee would be much more productive. This could be the reason there is so much job stress and workplace violence. According to the Center for Disease Control, one fourth of employees view their jobs as their number one stressor. The CDC also states that problems at work are more strongly associated with health complaints than are any other life stressor-more so than even financial problems or family problems. People need an outlet for job stress, and that outlet would be more paid time off to get away from the job.

                                                                                    VACATION DAYS BY COUNTRY

                                                                                            Australia             28 days

                                                                                            New Zealand     30 days

                                                                                            Italy                       31 days

                                                                                            Spain                    34 days

                                                                                            Portugal              35 days

                                                                                            Ireland                29 days

                                                                                            Belgium             30 days

                                                                                            France                 31 days

                                                                                            Germany            34 days

                                                                                            Europe                20 days

    The issue of mandatory paid time off for workers was introduced as a bill in Congress that would have mandated one week of paid leave to American workers, but it never got anywhere with Congress. This is ironic because Congress gets on average about three months recess time a year. We can only hope that one day this issue will be addressed again by our legislators, and maybe the next time they will be successful in getting legislation passed that would mandate a certain amount of paid vacation days for American workers. What do you think?