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The irony is that the modernisation of systems of production, which enables more to be created more easily, logically argues that people could work fewer hours for the same standard of living.

Kilkrazy wrote:The irony is that the modernisation of systems of production, which enables more to be created more easily, logically argues that people could work fewer hours for the same standard of living.

But they wouldn't have the same standard of living if working less hours = getting less wages (while also relying on increasingly scarce fossil fuels), this is one of the reasons I believe we need to move away from the capitalist model over the next few decades.

Working hours and the culture of people working extra hours in salaried work promotes 'busy work' and not actual productive work.

We get 22 days of paid vacation a year over here (unless you are a public servant in which case you get about 150 days).

And while it is true that if you get sick during your vacations, you can theoretically put on sick leave and get your vacations days back, I've never even heard of a single person that actually did that...

Also, we get 6 months of paid maternity and 2 months of paid paternity leave.

dæl wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:The irony is that the modernisation of systems of production, which enables more to be created more easily, logically argues that people could work fewer hours for the same standard of living.

But they wouldn't have the same standard of living if working less hours = getting less wages (while also relying on increasingly scarce fossil fuels), this is one of the reasons I believe we need to move away from the capitalist model over the next few decades.

But stuff would be cheaper, because it's easier to produce.

Daba wrote:Working hours and the culture of people working extra hours in salaried work promotes 'busy work' and not actual productive work.

Truth, for most industries.

It's called presenteeism and it is common in industries where it is hard to measure productivity.

A lot of office jobs fall into that category.

Kilkrazy wrote:It's called presenteeism and it is common in industries where it is hard to measure productivity.

A lot of office jobs fall into that category.

95% of my working time in my current role falls into this category unfortunately.I could probably fit all my useful work for the month into 1 day.

Kilkrazy wrote:

dæl wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:The irony is that the modernisation of systems of production, which enables more to be created more easily, logically argues that people could work fewer hours for the same standard of living.

But they wouldn't have the same standard of living if working less hours = getting less wages (while also relying on increasingly scarce fossil fuels), this is one of the reasons I believe we need to move away from the capitalist model over the next few decades.

But stuff would be cheaper, because it's easier to produce.

Assuming something's price is directly linked to it's difficulty to produce, which alas it's not.Something's price tends to be based on "demand" which will increase with population and as developing countries become developed, if you also factor in advertising and marketing becoming more aggressive as we all become desensitised, that makes up the shortfall in overheads from lower wages.

Price of goods depends primarily on demand and production cost. Thus if things are cheaper to produce the market clearing price will be lower and more will be sold. Basic economic theory.

The real word market price depends on a variety of factors including competitor pricing, of course, however the actual production cost cannot be ignored as an important factor, since an important means of competition is to lower prices and this can only be done in the long term by reducing production costs.

The amount of vacation and sick time you get in the US usually depends on the company you work for. I know some people get a decent bit of vacation a year, and some people who get barely any. Some people also get a bit of paid vacation, and can take more if they want to, it just won't be paid vacation.

I'm pretty sure some US companies offer paid maternity leave, and a few are starting to offer paternity leave, although paternity leave isn't nearly as common in the US as it is in Europe.

There are plenty of things I like about the US and plenty of things I like about Europe, but vacation days and time off of work is definitely an area where many European countries have a significant advantage over the US.

In the US, for many companies it just seems like offering vacation days and letting you take vacation are two different things.

Many make you feel guilty for taking it, telling you that there is not enough staff so everybody has to work harder to cover for your selfishness. You are not a team player and only care about yourself. We have an important project due, you cannot go on vacation now! It will even show up on your performance review if you are lucky.

And some jobs will only give you a couple days at a time. A two week vacation will relax you, but what are you going to do when your 'vacation' is basically just a 4 day weekend? My state is a fire-at-will state, so people that fight to get a couple of weeks of vacation at once suddenly find themselves out of work.

People here love to paint socialism as the devil, but in areas like employment laws we could take a lesson from Europe. This country seems to strongly favor employers.

d-usa wrote:In the US, for many companies it just seems like offering vacation days and letting you take vacation are two different things.

Many make you feel guilty for taking it, telling you that there is not enough staff so everybody has to work harder to cover for your selfishness. You are not a team player and only care about yourself. We have an important project due, you cannot go on vacation now! It will even show up on your performance review if you are lucky.

And some jobs will only give you a couple days at a time. A two week vacation will relax you, but what are you going to do when your 'vacation' is basically just a 4 day weekend? My state is a fire-at-will state, so people that fight to get a couple of weeks of vacation at once suddenly find themselves out of work.

People here love to paint socialism as the devil, but in areas like employment laws we could take a lesson from Europe. This country seems to strongly favor employers.

I don't think it really even has that much to do with capitalism vs. socialism, but more with differing expectations and what people are willing to do and not do. I think companies that offer more time off and don't fight with people who try to actually use it tend to have a bit more respect for their employees, and in Europe there are probably more employees who will stick up for themselves to make sure they get to spend the time off that they're given. In a lot of European companies, the expectation is already there that employees get their time off, and get to take their vacation days together if they want to. In a lot of US jobs that expectation isn't necessarily there and in some cases probably never has been. Too many people in the US are willing to sacrifice their personal and family lives to get ahead with their career, and not enough people are willing to stand up and fight to get a bit more free time or be allowed to take a full week or two off.

It's unfortunate, but I'm hoping that it's starting to change, now that some US companies are starting to offer things like paternity leave.

Hordini wrote:Too many people in the US are willing to sacrifice their personal and family lives to get ahead with their career, and not enough people are willing to stand up and fight to get a bit more free time or be allowed to take a full week or two off.

Yep.

Good example.

Kilkrazy wrote:That's what they say about the Japanese too, but Japanese are famously collective about things.

What I don't understand is why, in such an individualistically minded culture as the USA, people seem so concerned to kowtow to the demands of the boss.

I mean, we can laugh at the Euros for all sorts of things but when you get down to it they don't take any gak from the system. They do what suits them.

To quote the Ferengi, "We don't want to end the exploitation, we want to become the exploiters!"

America has this weird love-hate relationship with the rich, we hate them but we want to be them and don't like to consider the idea that our system might just have problems. One reason we're so dismissive of Europe and Canada is America is a culture of immigrants and we cannot STAND the idea that other countries might just have something we can learn from.

Kilkrazy wrote:What's wrong with having time off work?

It isn't prison.

Big buisness would like very much to change that. In America they are succeeding.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kilkrazy wrote:The irony is that the modernisation of systems of production, which enables more to be created more easily, logically argues that people could work fewer hours for the same standard of living.

But then big business would't be able to achieve their current astronomical profits. And the economy would be much healthier.

Palindrome wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:It's called presenteeism and it is common in industries where it is hard to measure productivity.

A lot of office jobs fall into that category.

95% of my working time in my current role falls into this category unfortunately.I could probably fit all my useful work for the month into 1 day.

Anyone here seen Office Space?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE528sNNm-s&feature=fvwrel
(skip to about 6:50)

All I want are some laws that protect employees.

I have worked at my current job for a year and a half. I have not gotten a single raise and I have taken one vacation(45 hours).

While I was on vacation, my boss gave my days to "people that wanted to work" and since my vacation has ended, I have been getting fewer hours at work. This does not seem ethical to me.

Dreadwinter wrote:
While I was on vacation, my boss gave my days to "people that wanted to work" and since my vacation has ended, I have been getting fewer hours at work. This does not seem ethical to me.

Disclaimer: Not aimed at Dreadwinter, the bold is just a thing that bothers me.

People don't want to work. If they want to do it, then it isn't work in the sense meant colloquially. That people still pretend otherwise is a fething joke.

Back to the origonal post, many people are seeing this as free holidays if you say you were sick. This is simply not the case. For a start if you were ill you will move from holiday pay to sick pay. Many people do not get sick pay, so would only get SSP.

Unfortunatly too many business owners in the UK would like a system like the US where people are treated very badly. The idea that people should be thankfull they have a job and that employers have no obligation to treat staff as anything more than tools.

Steve steveson wrote:Unfortunatly too many business owners in the UK would like a system like the US where people are treated very badly. The idea that people should be thankfull they have a job and that employers have no obligation to treat staff as anything more than tools.

Unfortunately this tory government seems that it will be giving business owners the system they want. They just doubled the length of time to 24 months before you get full rights, and seem to think that to get out of a recession you should make it easier to fire people.

dæl wrote:Unfortunately this tory government

You mean the one with Lib Dems in it?

SilverMK2 wrote:

dæl wrote:Unfortunately this tory government

You mean the one with Lib Dems in it?

The Lib Dems that basically just abstain from every vote? Yeah, it's effectively a tory government.

dæl wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:

dæl wrote:Unfortunately this tory government

You mean the one with Lib Dems in it?

The Lib Dems that basically just abstain from every vote? Yeah, it's effectively a tory government.

They're there to represent the people, if they don't feel like doing what they were (kinda) elected to do, that is their problem. You can't just blame the tories when other parties have an input on how things are run.

The Liberal Democrats would be more effective in opposition as they would be at least voting against such things as the Welfare Reform Bill and the NHS reforms, currently they abstain and it becomes a tory majority vs a labour minority.

So no they aren't representing their constituents at all, and the inputs they are having are negligible, look at the last budget, the Lib Dems got a minor increase in the tax free allowance that was nowhere near what they asked for, while the tories had pretty much everything they wanted.

SilverMK2 wrote:

dæl wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:

dæl wrote:Unfortunately this tory government

You mean the one with Lib Dems in it?

The Lib Dems that basically just abstain from every vote? Yeah, it's effectively a tory government.

They're there to represent the people, if they don't feel like doing what they were (kinda) elected to do, that is their problem. You can't just blame the tories when other parties have an input on how things are run.

The Libdems have a say in anything that government does?

The Libdems are just there as a meatshield for the tories. When something is unpopular Nick Clegg catches the flak because it's likely that he promised not to do it (No rise in student fees, yay! Wait....what?) and any person who looks back at history sees that its what the conservatives always do. So it's the Libdems betraying the people who voted for them and the tories just being the tories.