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New National Poll Shows Strong Support for Paid Vacation Law!

A new poll finds that more than two-thirds of Americans support a law that would guarantee paid vacations for workers.  The poll found 69% of Americans saying they would support a paid vacation law, with the largest percentage of respondents favoring a law guaranteeing three weeks vacation or more.  Take Back Your Time advocates a three-week paid vacation law... (see more)

Take Back Your Vacation

Vacations are vanishing. Only 14% of Americans will get a vacation of two weeks or longer this year. A third of women and a quarter of men get no annual leave anymore, as annual leave benefits are being eliminated like pensions. Many others are afraid to use their paid leave for fear they could be laid off or demoted if they do. No wonder the average American vacation is now down to a long weekend.

It's time to protect vacations before they disappear altogether. Unlike 127 other countries, the U.S. has no minimum paid-leave law. Australians have four weeks off by law, the Europeans four and five weeks. The Japanese two weeks. We have zero.  The lack of annual leave standards means many Americans never get time off, says "No Vacation Nation," a recent report by the Center for Economic Policy Research.

But you can change that by joining the campaign to pass The Minimum Leave Protection, Family Bonding and Personal Well-Being Act of 2007. This amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act would guarantee that anyone who's worked at a job for a year would get three weeks of vacation.

The principle behind minimum paid leave is the same one that has been long enshrined in the minimum wage, to protect those who can't protect themselves. The minimum leave amendment would appear after the minimum wage section in the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The bill would:

• Protect you from having your vacation cut or eliminated by an employer
• Protect you from chronically cancelled vacations
• Protect you from losing vacation time when you change jobs. You will always get three weeks after a year at a job.
• Protect you against retaliation for taking your vacation time, and end the fear of replacement, demotion, or lost promotions when you take all the time in your company policy.
• Provide a pro rata share of the three-week vacation after three months until the one-year mark is reached. For example, after six months, you would get 1.5 weeks off.

When millions of the hardest working people in the world are afraid to take their vacations because they could be replaced or bypassed for promotions, we need Leave Protection.

When the volatile economy forces workers in their 40s, 50s and 60s to start their paid leave banks over again with a new company at one or two weeks as if they were at their very first job, we need Leave Protection.

When paid leave is being cut and eliminated by companies across the nation, we need Leave Protection.

Join the campaign and spread the word far and wide. Let's make this the last summer without vacations in the USA!

Click here to read our latest Press Release

Vacation time is becoming an endangered species in America. And that is why we are very excited to share with you Adventure Travel Trade Association's endorsement of Take Back Your Time's and Work to Live's minimum paid-leave proposals to ensure vacation time in the U.S. To read the press release of this announcement, click here.

Reclaim Family Dinnertime

Take Back Your Time is excited to be collaborating with Panera Bread on a campaign to reclaim family dinnertime. Click here for more information.

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE? Are you, or your friends or relatives, working more now but enjoying it less? Does your family's schedule feel like a road race? If so, you're not alone. Millions of Americans are overworked, over-scheduled and just plain stressed out.

• We're putting in longer hours on the job now than we did in the 1950s, despite promises of a coming age of leisure before the year 2000.
  
• In fact, we're working more than medieval peasants did, and more than the citizens of any other industrial country.
  
• Mandatory overtime is at near record levels, in spite of a recession.
  
• On average, we work nearly nine full weeks (350 hours) LONGER per year than our peers in Western Europe do.
  
• Working Americans average a little over two weeks of vacation per year, while Europeans average five to six weeks. Many of us (including 37% of women earning less than $40,000 per year) get no paid vacation at all.

Contemporary Americans complain of unprecedented levels of busyness in everyday life. They worry about frenetic schedules, hurried children, couples with no time together, families who rarely eat meals together, and an onslaught of "hidden work" from proliferating emails, junk mail, and telemarketing calls. The Girl Scouts recently introduced a "Stress Free" merit badge for today's harried young girls.

CANADIANS FEEL THE PRESSURE TOO

While Canadians work somewhat less than Americans do, and enjoy longer vacations and paid family leave, they are also working more now than a generation ago and feeling the pressure of time stress and hurried lifestyles. Many have joined our campaign.

TIME STRESS HURTS ALL OF US IN DIFFERENT WAYS

• Time stress threatens our health. It leads to fatigue, accidents and injuries. It reduces time for exercise and encourages consumption of calorie-laden fast foods. Job stress and burnout costs the U.S. economy more than $300 billion a year.
  
• Time stress threatens our marriages, families and relationships as we find less time for each other, less time to care for our children and elders, less time to just hang out.
  
• It weakens our communities. We have less time to know our neighbors, supervise our young people, and volunteer.
  
• It reduces employment as fewer people are hired and then required to work longer hours, or are hired for poor part-time jobs without benefits.
  
• It leaves many of us with little time to vote, much less be informed, active citizens.
  
• It leaves us little time for ourselves, for self-development, or for spiritual growth.
  
• It leads to growing neglect and abuse of pets.
  
• It even contributes to the destruction of our environment. Studies show that lack of time encourages use of convenience and throwaway items and reduces recycling.

TAKE BACK YOUR TIME DAY is a broad and non-partisan coalition for change. This issue can unite groups who seldom talk to each other -- family values conservatives and the women's movement, labor unions and environmentalists, clergy and doctors, advocates for social justice, enlightened business leaders and the "slow food" and "simple living" movements. This issue affects people across class, gender, race and ideological lines.

We need your help, your enthusiasm, your ideas, and even your financial support. Be the first to start a TAKE BACK YOUR TIME committee in your town, and join us now, because there's no present like the time.

• If you would like to read the TAKE BACK YOUR TIME Public Policy Agenda, click here.

• If you would like to stay informed about future TAKE BACK YOUR TIME activities, click here to join our e-mail list.

• If you know others who would like to know about TAKE BACK YOUR TIME, click here to send them a personal e-mail.

• If your group or organization would like to be involved in sponsoring or supporting TAKE BACK YOUR TIME, please contact us.