People stand in line at the entrance to the Space Mountain at Disneyland Paris in Marne-la-Vallee in August 2015. French workers, unlike Americans, have guaranteed time off. Credit: Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty
If Araceli Torres worked anywhere in the European Union, she’d be guaranteed four weeks of paid vacation every year by law, the standard set in 1993, plus another eight to 10 paid holidays. If she worked in Brazil, Libya, Turkmenistan, or Oman, the law would allow her 30 days of paid vacation. In her home country of Mexico, she’d be entitled to six.
But Torres, 32, a single mother of two, works in a nail salon in the Bronx. Her legal guarantee? Zero.
In the past nine years, Torres, who works close to 50 hours a week at $11 an hour, says she has not had a single day of paid time off. “I have two kids. I’ve missed a lot of important time with them,” she said in an interview, speaking through a translator. “I wish I could turn back […]
In the mid-1980’s I started several large scale farming businesses in Mexico. I was shocked (and amused) to find that the American bragging rights to exceptionalism did not portray the truth of worker benefits and conditions.
(NOTE: American farm workers had None of these benefits,) The Mexican farm workers had automatic accrued fully paid vacation, personal time, sick leave, health insurance (no copay or deductible), extensive social security and automatic severance. Their base time was calculated at 7 days per week, 8 hours per day although they worked 5.5 days, 8 hours per day which caused in overtime rates to reach 250%.
Their child labor laws were stronger than the USA and they even had toilets and washing stations before American unions forced those innovations for American farm workers.
Unions were far stronger than the USA. A labor strike would create an automatic lien for unpaid wages against the business property which could quickly result in the bankruptcy of the company. It caused folks to negotiate in earnest.
It was a poor country by USA standards and was recovering and dealing with centuries of colonial or despotic rule…but the workers were developing a sense of pride in themselves.