TT: A Long Holiday Without Fear

Looking for the Wednesday Wandering?  Just page back and learn a little about the care and feeding of a writer.  Then come on back and help me explain to Alan how holidays work – or don’t – in the country of your choice.

Holiday Pursuits

ALAN: I’ve just gone back to work after a nice, long relaxing Christmas break. One of the things I stumbled over during my holiday was an internet discussion group that was talking about American vacation habits.

To my surprise, many people were complaining that they didn’t dare take holidays from work because they were scared that they’d be sacked and replaced while they were away. Since I live in a country where workers are mandated by law to take a minimum of four weeks holiday a year whether they like it or not (and many employers insist on giving their workers more than that), I found this quite shocking. Do you have any thoughts about this?

JANE: I guess I’d better start with the reminder that I don’t get any paid holidays at all.  That’s one of the joys of being self-employed.  Before that, I was a college professor.  That’s a job where there is ample time off, but little choice as to when you can take it.  So I suspect this is a topic where our readers are going to need to help out in explaining how matters work here in the U.S.

I’ll start by asking you a question.  When you say four weeks vacation mandated by law, do you mean that those four weeks are paid?

ALAN: Yes – paid leave. We get paid sick leave, parental leave, and bereavement leave as well, over and above our holiday allowance. A friend of mine once took bereavement leave because his pet rat had died. Some people mocked him for that – but not me. Grief is always real and he was very, very upset and quite incapable of work so why should he have been forced to come in?

If I may neologise for a moment, “presenteeism” (as opposed to absenteeism) has always struck me as being a short sighted policy. What’s the point of being there if you are sick, or grieving? You won’t get anything useful done.

JANE: I agree with you – although sometimes work can be a great distraction from grief.  It was for me when Roger died, but I doubt it would have been if I hadn’t loved writing.

Anyhow, you get all this leave  for any job, even flipping burgers?

ALAN: Yes, indeed – there’s even a minimum wage that employers have to pay.

JANE: We have a minimum wage here, too.  The amount is set by the federal government, although a state or city can choose to set a higher minimum wage.

However, vacation time and other types of leave are considered  benefits or bonuses, not something set by law.

ALAN: I understand that in America you have employees known as interns who aren’t paid anything at all, but who are just getting job experience. Is that the case?

JANE: That’s right.  There are both paid interns and unpaid interns.  As our economy gets hit harder and harder, unpaid is more likely.  Again, this is an area where someone else can probably provide details that I can’t.

ALAN: I won’t say that never happens here because I know that it does, but it’s very rare. Most intern-like positions would actually pay minimum wage.

JANE: Going back to how paid vacation time is handed out, policies vary a lot.   Often someone new to a job doesn’t get any paid vacation.  In some cases, there is a formula for accruing paid vacation and sick leave based on how long you work.  Back when I worked for the Small Business Administration (summers in college), I was enchanted to find that I earned both sick leave and vacation time.  That certainly wasn’t the case when I worked at a restaurant.

How long does a person need to work at a job to get that mandated four weeks?  Certainly, you can’t just start and then claim vacation time.

ALAN: Indeed you can’t! You have to be in the job for a year to be able to claim the full four weeks. But during the first year you accrue leave at a pro-rata rate.  But if you wanted more than your accrued allowance during that first year, very few employers would quibble on the grounds that you’d certainly make it up later.

Actually, when I first came to New Zealand, the mandated holiday allowance was only three weeks. I was horrified! The job I had in England gave me eight weeks – but I must admit, that was exceptional. Most UK jobs gave four or sometimes five weeks holiday allowance.

JANE: Astonishing…

ALAN: There were also a lot of postings in the discussion I eavesdropped on about “at will” and “right to work” states where the posters said that employees could be fired at any time for any reason or for no reason.

It’s almost impossible to sack people here. In the whole of my working life, I’ve only known of two people being summarily dismissed, one because he swore at and threatened violence to a customer, and one because he stole money from the company. Outside of that, it’s almost impossible to get rid of an employee.

JANE: I can’t say it’s impossible to fire someone here, but it isn’t quite as easy as you seem to think.  I remember the convolutions Jim went through trying to get rid of someone who wasn’t showing up at work, wasn’t doing his job when he was there, and several other things I’d better not mention.  Jim had to document all of this –  then in the end the fellow just stopped showing up, solving the problem for them.

However, didn’t your wife recently lose her job?

ALAN: Yes – but Robin was made redundant and that’s quite a different kettle of fish. That means that the job she was doing was no longer required by the company. Because her job had vanished, there was nothing for her to do and so they let her go. She was paid six months salary as compensation,which was quite a handy chunk of change!

JANE: Again, similar programs do exist here.  They’re not mandated by federal law, rather by state law or specific company policy.

I’m betting some of our readers can help you understand what those folks were so afraid of that they wouldn’t dare miss work.  I know we have readers from other countries as well.  I’d be interested in hearing how hiring and firing and vacation time work elsewhere.

Advertisement