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United States According to a new study by Harvard and McGill University researchers, the United States lags far behind nearly all wealthy countries when it comes to family-oriented workplace policies such as maternity leave, paid sick days and support for breast feeding. Jody Heyman, founder of the Harvard-based Project on Global Working Families and director of McGill’s Institute for Health and Social Policy, states that, "More countries are providing the workplace protections that millions of Americans can only dream of. The U.S. has been a proud leader in adopting laws that provide for equal opportunity in the workplace, but our work/family protections are among the worst." [45] This observation is being shared by many Americans today and is considered by many experts to be indicative of the current climate. However, the U.S. Labor Department is examining regulations that give workers unpaid leave to deal with family or medical emergencies (a review that supporters of the FMLA worry might be a prelude to scaling back these protections, as requested by some business groups). At the same time, Senator Chris Dodd from Connecticut is proposing new legislation that would enable workers to take six weeks of paid leave. Congress is also expected to reconsider the Healthy Families Act which is a bill that would require employers with at least fifteen employees to provide seven paid sick days per year.[45] At least 107 countries protect working women’s right to breast-feed and, in at least seventy-three of them, women are paid. The U.S. does not have any federal legislation guaranteeing mothers the right to breast-feed their infants at work, but 24 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have laws related to breastfeeding in the workplace.[46] There is not a federal law requiring paid sick days in the United States. When it comes to sick days, 145 countries provide sick days to their employees; 127 provide a week or more per year. At least 134 countries have laws setting the maximum length of the work week; the U.S. does not have a maximum work week length and does not place any limits on the amount of overtime that an employee is required to work each week. (survey) Sweden, Denmark and Norway have the highest level of maternity benefits—Sweden provides 68 weeks paid maternity leave, Norway provides 56 weeks paid maternity leave and Denmark provides 52.[30] Even when vacation time is offered in some U.S. companies, some choose not to take advantage of it. A 2003 survey by Management Recruiter International stated that fifty percent of executives surveyed didn’t have plans to take a vacation. They decided to stay at work and use their vacation time to get caught up on their increased workloads.[47] American workers average approximately ten paid holidays per year while British workers average twenty-five holidays and German employees thirty. Americans are at "work" twelve weeks more a year in total hours than Europeans though they are no more productive than the average European.[citation needed] European Union In Europe, the Working Time Directive has implemented a maximum 48-hour working week.[48] Many countries have opted for fewer hours. France attempted to introduce a thirty-five hour workweek, and Finland experimented with a thirty-hour week in 1996.[citation needed] Contradictory to the Scandinavian countries, there is no evidence of state policies that absolutely encourage men to take on a larger share of domestic work in France, Portugal, or Britain.[49] In a 2007, the European Quality of Life Survey found that countries in south-eastern Europe had the most common problems with work-life balance. In Croatia and Greece, a little over 70% of working citizens say that they are too tired to do household jobs at least several times a month because of work.[50] In Britain, legislation has been passed allowing parents of children under six to request a more flexible work schedule. Companies must approve this request as long as it does not damage the business. A 2003 Survey of graduates in the UK revealed that graduates value flexibility even more than wages.[51] In all twenty-five European Union countries, voters "punish" politicians who try to shrink vacations. "Even the twenty-two days Estonians, Lithuanians, Poles and Slovenians count as their own is much more generous than the leave allotted to U.S. workers." [47] According to a report by the Families and Work Institute, the average vacation time that Americans took each year averaged 14.6 days. According to Jeremy Reynolds, unions can lobby for benefits, pay, training, safety measures, and additional factors that impact the costs and benefits of work hours. “Unions can also have a more direct impact on hour mismatches through their efforts to change the length of the workday, work week, and work year, and to increase vacation and leave time.” This is why workers in countries where there are strong unions usually work fewer hours and have more generous leave policies than workers who are in countries where there are weaker unions.[52] It is critical to mention that cultural factors influence why and how much we work. As stated by Jeremy Reynolds, “cultural norms may encourage work as an end in itself or as a means to acquiring other things, including consumer products.” This might be why Americans are bound to work more than people in other countries. In general, Americans always want more and more, so Americans need to work more in order to have the money to spend on these consumer products.[52] |
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