Very reductionist comment- if you're an elected representative and you leave early to take a vacation knowing you'll be missing votes, you're not doing your job..
If you knowingly miss a vote, that’s part of the job. If your OOO gets played, that’s fucking up.
What's stopping MEPs from having to do that? Do they have literally zero responsibilities and accountabilities? Because their job is pretty critical for our society an security, even if a trained monkey could do it in theory.
Basically, I don't think politicians should be held to the same standard as some SWE making note-taking apps.
PTO is not a “privilege.” In fact, it is a documented right as part of the employment agreement your company makes you, when you sign that document about the handbook. It should be a legal agreement, but somehow we’ve convinced people their purpose in life is to work for 50-60 years for 40+ hours a week and then have maybe 20 years to enjoy life before they die, happy to be of service to the people.
Public servants deserve MORE time off and MORE money because they literally are ON CALL most of the time. Taking a vacation should be MORE Normal and votes shouldn’t require people to be in person.
You build your government the way you build your country - you should show the utmost respect for those in public service by treating them right and respecting their time.
I wasn't talking about work agreements with civil companies. You brought that in. My comment was in regards to public service only.
I don't disagree about public servants having more time off or more money. But I believe they should be on call. If that means cancelling vacation to vote, so be it. You don't want to have that life style? Don't run for public office.
FWIW, I've had skin in that game. I was stop lossed when I had 4 months left on my enlistment for a 15 month combat deployment. That's public service. Elected officials should be present and ready to serve.
I’m not American but happy to agree with the OP - being an elected MP is not just a job and if they want to take leave whenever they want to and miss critical votes then I’m sure they would have no trouble getting a normal job instead!
Surely the parliamentary sitting schedule gives them plenty of time off already where they would not miss votes (I know it does in my country)
this doesn't seem like oncall?
Sure you can. What unstoppable force is going to prevent you?
You might find out there are undesirable consequences if you make that choice, but that is only if the employer decides to bring undesirable consequences. MEP employers in particular are generally apathetic about having an employee on staff. Extremely so — to the point that they won't even take a minute out of multiple years to say "hi" to the person they hired, never mind give any direction to the employee.
It doesn't have to be that way, but when the employer doesn't care, that is the way it will be.
imo that a representative of the people misses a vote should just not be acceptable under any circumstances.
that's of course if we had to take "democracy" as an actually meaningful representation of the people. this was a cheap political maneuver to get a bill passed. happens everywhere. they would have gotten the bill through by any other means anyway.
that would be in an ideal democracy, though, in reality european parlamentarians don't even draft laws, they are only able to sign off on laws drafted by shady appointees of an equally shady and largely unelected (by the people) comission, take it or leave it. that, photo ops and declarations is their whole job, it shouldn't be too complicated to have a fucking substitute when on vacation.
Do you think CEOs take vacation where they cannot be reached? If it does happen, it is a very rare exception.