Vive les Vacances!

Volume 2, Issue 35- September 9-15, 2011

International Tribune

The Gallic tribe is returning home.  The summer exodus is coming to an inevitable halt.  This time-honored pilgrimage in French life usually starts in mid-July or the beginning of August and ends during the first week of September.  It is the most sacred and honored tradition in the French culture: the four weeks (minimum) summer vacation.  

Everyone is equally entitled, if requested- for their vacation during this time of the year.  Hurrah for égalité!  And because of this, the roads are jam packed with traffic all over the country.  At the airports and train stations, it is virtually a mass hysteria.  As an American living in Paris, I promise you, this is a collective movement like no other I have ever seen. French of all background, young and old, rich and poor are synchronized in action and bravely trained to maneuver themselves through the crowd to get to their final destinations. They even have Bison Futé (literal translation: Sharp Buffalo), a government-funded broadcasting company dedicated to monitor all commercial traffic on the ground for its citizens. Observing how Bison Futé works through the summer crowd is the closest that one can experience French camaraderie at its finest hours.  Hurrah for fraternité!  And finally, for some special case, the road back home was rougher than expected – with a slight twist of fate from a plane ride.  Yes, even DSK is now back in his arrondisement after his unexpected ‘perp walk’ in New York.   One is never too late to relearn the price of liberté.  

Here we are.  The summer of 2011 is finally over. It is now part of history.  The next massive movement will most likely be cyber traffic - as each holiday albums are posted each second via hundreds per megabytes on Facebook.  

You may now be wondering, do the French take their vacation days at the same time?  The quick and short answer is, yes.  And how many vacation days are they entitled to?   Well, this is where the Gallic tribe is far more advanced than the others and takes serious pride with their response. By government regulation, every worker is entitled to four weeks paid vacation.  Oh la la!  And the longer you stay in a company, the more vacation days are accumulated for your seniority and added to your employment contract.  In France, it is considered illegal to grant a worker less than four weeks of paid vacation.   This is not a bad national regulation to have, don’t you think so?  Why can’t a similar law exist in the United States? 

Believe it or not, most advanced countries have a law that protects employees for their time-off except in the United States according to the OECD, an international think tank.   The work force in Britain has 20 days guaranteed paid annual vacation.  Germany provides 24 paid vacation days.  The most generous are Finland and France, with 30 paid vacation days.   And on the other side of the Atlantic, Canada offers ten paid vacation days whereas in the United States, it is zero.  C’est dommage! Ironically, companies who offer paid vacation packages are already considered generous- even if it is only five paid vacation days (1 week) after toiling for two years.  The sad reality is, the US is the only industrialized country whose government does not have any law that supports and dictates how many paid vacation days one should be granted to a worker.  And same goes for the health benefits- but that is an entirely different topic for another article.  

Figure 1: OECD nations paid time off.  Statistics provided by the OECD.

One can argue that labor laws are different for every country.  Perhaps, it is probably far-fetched to compare European socialist models versus the American capitalist system in terms of labor rights.  However, the United States economy and government is still bigger compared to other countries.  There are more American-owned companies that are international in scope than other businesses elsewhere.   And when they expand outside their territory, to play by the rules, they have to honor the host country’s labor laws.  Technically, perks given by companies overseas exceeds what they provide to their fellow countrymen. Americans have no other choice but to work harder with fewer benefits.  How did we let labor rules evolved this way?  Or, how did we forget about taking care of the American workforce? 

America has become an alien nation when it comes to labor rights.  Most Americans are woefully ignorant of how pro-business US policies are compared to other countries.   And sadly, they do not really do anything about it.  According to Robert Frank, a Cornell University economist, an average American works 62.4 % more hours today than he did during the 1970s. And to go back even farther in time, in the 1950s, in order to make ends meet, an average American worker had to clock-in 42.5 hours.  Working conditions improved a little better and it slightly declined to 41.5 hours during the 1970s. Once you do the math, this only means that an average American worker is now toiling more than ever.  The quality time that should be spent with family and friends are lessened.  A basic thing such as a good night sleep is interrupted. And the idea of spending some leisure to cultivate one's personal interest or hobby has been definitely compromised if not completely relegated to the backburner.

Perhaps it is time Americans took some notes from their French counterparts and learn from their culture of joie de vivre.  Now that things are shaking up in the Capitol on the hot issue of employment and/or unemployment, maybe the time is ripe for changes on how to better take care of the hard-working Americans.  They certainly deserve more compensation than what they are given today.  Enacting a federal labor law as a guideline on paid vacation time will not cost dearly.   This clause can actually make the American work force happier and more rested- therefore, it will increase efficiency and productivity.  Maybe this is even a good strategy to help boost the ailing economy and the depress work force.  If we do not rock the boat now, considering the rate that working hours are increasing according to statistics, Americans might be soon risking their weekends permanently in the near future.   Quelle horreur!