Congress: the vacation hypocrites

Vacation. Are you taking any this year? Congress is.

Now, there have been plenty of angry articles (here, and here, and how about here) about how irresponsible and wrong it is that Congress is going on recess when they have so much to do, right now. I’m a big proponent of vacation. I believe it makes for happier, healthier and more productive workers. To me, it is simple enough: vacation is good for the bottom line.

What makes me angry is not that Congress has and takes vacation, but that they are such hypocrites about it. As Randy Cohen writes in The Ethicist in the NYTimes: “Although Congress grants itself a couple of months off each year, it guarantees ordinary Americans no vacation whatever.” Cohen points out that our friends in Europe have at least four weeks in federally mandated guaranteed vacation while Americans have none. That’s right, zip, zero. And here’s where the double standard gets incredibly infuriating. Congress, the very same people who happily take advantage of their generous vacation time, are shying away from the possibility of giving their constituents even a fraction of the same! The Paid Vacation Act of 2009, introduced by Alan Grayson of Florida,  is up in congress at the moment, and guess how many co-sponsors it has so far? Four. That’s right, four. Cohen sums it up perfectly: “Denying others what you grab for yourself is hypocrisy, widely regarded as a moral failing.”

And the Paid Vacation Act of 2009 is not a crazy dramatic proposal. As it says on Grayson’s website:

The Paid Vacation Act will require at least one week of paid vacation for employees at companies with at least 100 employees.  Full- and part-time (25 hours per week/1250 hours per year) workers will be eligible after one year of service. Three years after enactment, companies with at least 50 employees would be required to offer at least one week of paid vacation, and companies with at least 100 employees would be required to offer at least two weeks of paid vacation.

I’m a champion of the belief that vacation is not just an indulgence, it’s necessary in order to get the most out of your workers. I was happy to see that Congressman Grayson shares this view. And so, I couldn’t resist sharing his list of “Paid Vacation Fast Facts” with you. After you read it, perhaps you’ll agree with me that it’s not the fact that Congress is taking vacation that we should be so angry about. What’s preposterous is that the American people don’t even have any to take.

- Astri

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Taken from Congressman Alan Grayson’s website:

PAID VACATION FAST FACTS

How the United States of America compares:
• The U.S. is the only industrialized nation without a minimum annual leave statute.
• At least 147 countries have a paid vacation law, including all developed countries.
• In 1980 Americans ranked 11th in the world in life expectancy.  We are now 42nd.
• Americans are twice as likely as Europeans to suffer from anxiety and depression, and many experts believe these deficits are caused by lack of time.
• Every European worker gets at least four weeks of paid vacation by law, yet the Euro is rising while the dollar is falling.

Americans are taking fewer (and shorter) vacations:
• PEW Research Center says “more free time” is the number one priority for middle-class Americans—68% listed this as a high priority for them.
• Last year only 14% of American workers took two weeks or more for vacation (Conference Board Study, 2008).
• The average American works one month (160 hours) more today than in 1976 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).
• Last year about half (52%) of American workers took a vacation of a week or less (Opinion Research Corporation, 2008).
• 28% of Americans receive no paid vacation. Only 69% of lower-wage workers get any paid vacation leave (Opinion Research Corporation, 2008).
• 37% of American women earning less than $40,000 a year receive no paid annual leave (AFL-CIO, 2005).

Health:
• Men who do not take regular vacations are 32% more likely to die of heart attacks, and 21% more likely to die early of all causes.  Women have 50% more risk of heart attack (Dr. Brooks Gump, SUNY Oswego, 2000).
• Stress and burnout are five times more costly to treat than average workplace maladies.
• Women who do not take vacations are twice as likely to be depressed as those who do (Cathy McCarty, Marshfield Clinic, 2006).

Business Development:
• Stress and burnout at work cost the U.S. economy more than $344 billion a year (Middle Tennessee State University, 2003).
• Vacations can result in an 82% increase in performance (Mark Rosekind, Alertness Solutions).
• Vacations of at least two weeks eliminate burnout (Hobfoll, Shirom, 1993).
• The travel industry adds $740 billion dollars a year to the U.S. economy (U.S. Travel Association).
• People have a 60% increase in productivity in the month or two after a vacation (Wallace Huffman, Iowa State University).
• Paid vacation, after health care, is the benefit most appreciated by workers (AFL-CIO, 2005).
• Workers sleep better after taking vacations and are 30-40% more alert on the job when they return (Air New Zealand).