If Joe Robinson has his way, American workers will be able to get the vacation time they deserve without having to move to Europe.
Robinson, of Santa Monica, Calif., has collected 50,000 signatures in hopes of persuading Congress to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to require employers to give workers three weeks’ vacation after one year on the job and four weeks after three years. (You’ve got to love the guy for trying.)
Robinson says the reason behind his campaign, called Work to Live, is simple: America is working itself sick, sometimes to death. He points to research that shows that even one week of vacation lowers the risk of heart attack by 23 percent for men 35 to 55.
“While we’re working overtime, our body is working overtime. We can’t feel it because the adrenaline masks the actual damage and makes us think we can handle it all,” Robinson said.
Workers in France, Canada and Australia, where four to six weeks off is standard after one year, would surely scoff at the average 13 days of vacation Americans get. And one in six workers are too busy to take all the days off they’ve earned, according to an Oxford Health Plans Inc. survey.
“People are working nights and weekends to save themsevles from the next cutback. I think we’ve worked ourselves into a lot of guilt,” Robinson said.
The big question
When Accountemps asked executives who they would seek advice from before making a job change, most said their significant others. But 28 percent said they’d talk to a mentor. That was a surprise, said Reesa Staten, director of research programs.
“When you’re considering a career change, you need to talk to someone who knows you best,” she said.
Thirteen percent said they would ask a co-worker and 11 percent a friend. Vernon Jordan, the businessman and good buddy to former President Clinton, recently revealed the identity of his confidant to a group of professionals.
“I never made a major decision in my career without discussing it with my mother,” Jordan said.
You’re outta here
If you could fire your boss, would you?
A recent Maritz poll found that one in five workers would fire their boss if they could. Researchers say the desire to can the boss is linked to an employee’s perceptions about senior management.
“I think what’s trickling down is a feeling of mistrust that senior leadership’s action isn’t always consistent with what they espouse,” said Gary Edwards, vice president of Maritz Research.
For example, of employees who said their co-workers were not working toward the same goals, 51 percent would fire their boss. Of employees who said they were not provided with the resources they needed to do a good job, 50 percent would fire their boss.
Personal conflicts cannot be ruled out. Edwards said some employers promote managers based on their ability to excel without regard to people skills.
“People selected for the role of people management aren’t always the right ones to take that on.”
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