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>I've got a better idea. Keep the vacation and cut work hours down to 40.

Pff, more like we should go to 35hrs with mandatory _paid_ overtime and also _increase_ vacation to 6 weeks.

And also demand reparations for all the stolen time. (Real pay hasn't increased since 1970.)

After that we can talk about taking it further.

Welcome to Norway except for the bit about reparations, and it's 37.5 hours.

Here in Austria its 38.5hrs, 5 weeks vacation, and in June and December employees receive a doubled monthly salary ("vacation money" and "christmas money").

If it's anything like Norwegian "christmas money", it's just a tax accounting rule where you pay for it the other 11 months in year.

Still a huge relief come December, as is holiday money in the summer. It probably works as a huge benefit to the economy too, although I have no evidence to back that assumption.

> Real pay hasn't increased since 1970

It has, it's just been pretty shallow growth. That flatlined in the late 90's. And then fell to 1970's levels in 2008/2009

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