Progressive Ideas We Need: Paid vacation leave as part of every job

Edi­tor’s Note: Today and through­out this week­end, NPI is run­ning a spe­cial series here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate called Pro­gres­sive Ideas We Need, high­light­ing pro­pos­als that would raise qual­i­ty of life in our region and in the Unit­ed States as a whole. Each post is con­tributed by an NPI staff, board, or advi­so­ry coun­cil member. 

Fam­i­lies can play togeth­er when par­ents are able to take vaca­tion time.

When I was grow­ing up, my Dad’s man­u­fac­tur­ing plant closed for two weeks every win­ter and every sum­mer. These were good union jobs.

First, he was a plant man­ag­er and then he was a nation­al sales man­ag­er, but the whole plant closed and all the work­ers took a vaca­tion – a paid vacation.

That’s how it all start­ed. When Dad took vaca­tion, he’d make break­fast for us. We’d go Christ­mas shop­ping with him to help him pick out his presents for Mom.

We’d go skat­ing and sled­ding. We’d watch foot­ball and hock­ey and some­times go to a hock­ey game. In the sum­mer, we’d take a week­end and dri­ve to the Cape Cod Nation­al Seashore. We’d head to the beach with “The Crowd” — about thir­ty peo­ple from the fam­i­lies in the neigh­bor­hood. We’d cook out, play base­ball, vis­it our grand­par­ents, and go out for ice cream cones.

That was what it was like when work­ers had paid vacation.

Today, it’s dif­fer­ent. The work­place is all about the rat race and work­ers are afraid to take time off to reju­ve­nate. The “work, work, work” menal­i­ty today has left 23% of full-time Amer­i­can work­ers with no paid vaca­tion time and no paid holidays.

A 2013 study showed that six­ty-five per­cent of part-time work­ers get no paid time off. For full-time Amer­i­can work­ers, the Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics shows that they earn on aver­age 8.1 days of vaca­tion after a year on the job.

Today, fam­i­lies strug­gle to pay the bills. They can’t afford to take unpaid time off to spend with their fam­i­lies. Sin­gle par­ents can’t take a week off to just hang out with their kids when they don’t get paid for that time off. The Unit­ed States seems addict­ed to work (or, as Annie Leonard put it, the work-watch-shop treadmill).

If we want to build healthy fam­i­lies and strong economies, our work­ers need to know that they can take vaca­tion with­out fear of los­ing their jobs. We must sup­port strong fam­i­lies and secure our mid­dle class. Every work­er needs vaca­tion time to rest and re-ener­gize. This is what a great soci­ety needs to improve qual­i­ty of life for every­one. Offer­ing employ­ees paid vaca­tion leave is just the fair thing to do.