A new poll finds that more than two-thirds of Americans (69%) support a law that would guarantee paid vacations for American workers.
The poll, conducted by The Opinion Research Company for the Take Back Your Time organization, involved 1,002 Americans contacted by phone during the week of June 23. You can see more results at the organization’s new site, www.right2vacation.org.
Take Back Your Time (TBYT) is pushing for a bill that would guarantee three weeks paid vacation for anyone who has worked at a job for a year or more.
“The United States is the only wealthy country without a paid vacation law,” said Joe Robinson, author of Work to Live and a leader in the TBYT campaign. “We’re the capital of burnout and it’s costing billions of dollars a year in medical bills and productivity losses. We can change that with a law guaranteeing vacations to workers.”
Some companies are going much further by allowing workers to take as much vacation as needed — as long as they meet all their performance goals. See more in this BusinessWeek article. I hope that trend catches on!
Burnout and recession fears are big threats to vacations this year, as I’ve reported earlier.
I’ll leave you with one interesting statistic from TBYT: According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American works one month (160 hours) more today than in 1976.
