Happy Holidays? Fighting for time off.

From here :-

Italy 42 days
France 37 days
Germany 35 days
Brazil 34 days
U.K. 28 days
Canada 26 days
Korea 25 days
Japan 25 days
U.S. 13 days

In America unlike in most other countries, there is no federal law mandating that companies pay employees for time off or that they grant them a minimum amount of vacation days unpaid. The Center for Economic and Policy Research estimates that almost one in four U.S. workers don't get any paid days off at all. Plus, Americans only earn their vacations after an average of three years on the job, while workers in many European countries earn vacation immediately upon being hired. In fact, it is said , just 57 % of people are taking all of their vacation time. "People are fearful for their jobs. They want to stay there and work but they also need the money," said John Wright, a senior vice president at the research firm Ipsos. "They don't want to miss out on anything at work because they don't want to fall behind or lose their job or something like that."

The difference in work hours between the United States and most industrial countries “is exactly a manifestation of the same forces driving broader inequality,” says CEPR economist John Schmitt, pointing to deterioration of the minimum wage, pensions, public services, health insurance, and wages under pressure from globalization, deregulation, privatization, and attacks on unions. “Workers haven’t been able to translate higher productivity gains into higher pay or benefits, and they’ve been unable to address the time crunch. People in the United States don’t even understand what could be possible on this issue [of paid time off],” Schmitt says. “This is one of the most important ideological victories of the right in the last 30 years: to persuade us we aren’t rich enough to treat workers well. We’re incredibly rich, getting richer every year, and we have plenty of resources to pay adequate wages, pensions, health insurance, and vacations, but we’ve chosen to give that money to the top 5 percent.”

Plus, recent increases in the U.S. gross domestic product haven’t significantly helped most Americans: The super-rich have captured most of the income gains. An accurate calculation of the gross domestic product — subtracting such costs as crime, environmental depredations, militarism, and declining social trust — would actually show that growth in economic output has brought few, if any, real gains in welfare for American society.

Most Americans would be better off with more paid vacation and leave, but inequality, insecurity, and the competitive rat race drives people to work even harder, often just to keep their heads above water.