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Comment by maxerickson | Hacker News Reader

On the other side of it, it's nice to get the time off even if you don't get sick. Companies will tend to argue that sick time is only for when you are sick.

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> Companies will tend to argue that sick time is only for when you are sick.

To me this somehow... makese sense? Of course a burnout counts as sick time, but for just getting "time off" there's vacation days, which are (in Europe) mandatory. Mandatory as in "your contract grants you at least X days off" and often "you need to take at least X-Y days off in one year"

Context is king. We are talking about banning lumped PTO. Pretty much every company moving from lumped PTO to vacation+sick is going to make vacation smaller than the lumped PTO.

Most companies are going to use any change in leave policies to decrease total leave, if they're allowed to do so. This happened when pooled PTO became common as well - moving from, say, 10 days vacation and 10 days sick leave to 15 days PTO.

Not disputing that there are shitty companies out there, but I worked somewhere that did this exact thing (10+10 to 15) but it was explicitly said that sick days don't burn PTO. If you're sick you don't work, paid, and if it's more than 2 days in a row you need a note. Basically, treating the employees like adults.

If more companies did that people would be happier and more productive across the board.

I'm fine with that, so long as there is also a reasonable amount of vacation time. The US really needs to get with the times and have basic workers' rights. Currently, the average number of vacation days per year in the US (17 days), is less than the statutory minimum number of days in many countries.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/15/statista-how-far-behind-us-i...

Part time employees pretty much don't get any vacation, so I doubt that is the real average (the article says 15, which still probably isn't the real average). BLS says ~16 for full time, so there you go: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm

That's also a hell of a 'so long as'. If you ban lumped PTO and don't establish a robust minimum, lots of people aren't going to get what they would prefer.

After taking a look at some other companies, I realized it’s pretty cushy having 26 days of PTO per year at a US company. When recruiters come knocking I point out that I don’t want to lose PTO days, and won’t consider positions where I’d have a reduction. Most of them don’t message me back.

Wait until you find out how many days per year the US mandates for parental leave.

I'll save you the suspense. The number is zero.

I'm less inclined to listen when people argue eroding or reducing workers rights when they are from the US.

It seems the general consensus there is regulation = evil and bad. Anyone who advocates such must be a communist.

Not at all suggest your comment is doing this.

What other countries do you hold prejudice stereotypes against, out of curiosity?

Besides United States, Papua New Guinea and Suriname also do not require employers to provide paid time off for new parents. So US isn´t the only country in the world that doesn´t have paid parental leave. Its one of the three countries in the world.

Federal law in the US mandates 12 workweeks of unpaid leave to care for yourself or someone else if your employer has 50+ employees:

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fmla/faq

However, it doesn’t separate for yourself and someone else, so technically a mother could be on bed rest for 3 months and exhaust all of her leave.

A small number of states do mandate paid family leave (specifically to care for someone else which includes new parents), but they also usually stipulate minimum number of employees at businesses.

It definitely doesn’t behoove a young person interested in becoming a parent at some point to work at a startup or small business unless they explicitly offer paid parental leave as a benefit.

Part of the reason my wife and I moved to the state we did was so that she can get an extra two months of leave with her newborn, and so our daughter would be growing up in state that offered them at least that much in the future.

In EU parental leave is paid, not in full, but you don't lose all your income while taking care of yourself and new taxpayer.

So looking at UK labor law, do bank holidays count?

"An employer can choose to include bank holidays as part of a worker’s statutory annual leave."

https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights

Because if so, they don't count in the US. So the US would be 17 days of vacation plus statutory holidays. At my job I get 25 days off, plus 13 statutory holidays, so 38 days a year off, paid.

US doesn't have any statutory work holidays. States don't either.

I believe they both define holidays, but it's for those directly employed, not workers in general.

By law, they don't count. The 28 days might be 20 days of your choice, plus the 8 bank holidays.

Most professional jobs give 28+8 (or more, I had 30+8 which slowly increased to 33+8).

Most everyone in the US that does not work in an office setting do not get paid for government holidays that they do not work. For example, at stores, restaurants, grocery stores, movie theaters, hotels, etc.

And there is no legal requirement to pay anyone for any government holiday that they do not work either. Many times, the people that do work on government holidays also do not get paid any extra for working on a holiday.

Does the US not have guaranteed vacation days? Here in Australia all non-casual workers must be given 20 days off a year (which in my view is actually too little -- in Europe workers get even more guaranteed days off).

EDIT: This doesn't count public holidays, we have 10 or so public holidays (depending on your state) in addition to your vacation days.

Nope. The US has no federal mandate for vacation days. Zero, zilch. The typical amount for full-time employees is 10 days vacation per year.

[0] https://www.footholdamerica.com/faqs/employing-a-us-worker/h...

I think you'd be hard pressed to find 10 days as a software developer. Every place seems to advertise 15 and 20 is becoming more common, especially if you ask for it during the interview process.

Germany is 20 days (on a 5 workdays week) as well. The law stipulates 24 days, so you see that number quoted a lot, but the law also assumes a 6 day work week.

I was thinking of the likes of France, Finland, Sweden, and so on which get 5 weeks, but yeah it seems the EU only requires a minimum of 4 weeks paid leave.

I don't think the EU and US count them the same. It looks like the EU minimum includes banks holidays? Where US vacation days don't include them.

"By law, every country in the European Union has at least four work weeks of paid vacation. Austria, which guarantees workers the most time off, has a legal minimum of 22 paid vacation days and 13 paid holidays each year."

So the US has no minimum, but the minimum offered is typically 10 days and the a middle class job 15 days. On top of that you get at least 10 federal holidays off (or you get paid 2x if you work). Many companies recognize 13+ "official days off".

So most US employees (there are exceptions) get ~20 days off a year, while for middle class it's more typical to get closer to 25-30. (15 + 13)

The number of people working minimum wage jobs saying they get zero PTO in the US is astounding.

Intra-EU immigrants, for example, are quite often treated like second rate workers. Maximum work for minimum pay. Come in at 9pm, stay for 2 hours, we need you for an emergency, 20 Yoyos in your pocket, yeah? That kind of thing.

If not for the laws, we'd be treated like disposable trash.

The EU minimum does not include bank holidays. The UK in practice has 20 vacation days (matching the EU minimum) plus 8 public holidays. It's just that the law is written that 28 days is the minimum including the 8 public holidays. The net effect is the same.

And by that metric, all Australian employees (excluding casual workers) get at least 32 days off a year (20 vacation days, plus 12 or more public holidays). The UK has 28, but that's because they have fewer public holidays. Seems like the US is still behind on time off, especially since none of your vacation time is actually guaranteed by law. I hope the situation improves over there.

The "at will" work concept (where employees can be fired without notice or compensation) is also very strange to me. That's not legal here.

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