Monday, August 07, 2006

Vacation Days

Contributed by: Anonymous
VACATION DAY SUMMARY REPORT:
Take a look at the minimum number of employer paid vacation days required and the average taken in other countries, then compare to the U.S.
Country: France
Minimum Days Required: 25
Average Vacation Days Taken: 25-30
Country: Spain
Minimum Days Required: 25
Average Vacation Days Taken: 30
Country: Sweden
Minimum Days Required: 25
Average Vacation Days Taken: 25-35
Country: Germany
Minimum Days Required: 24
Average Vacation Days Taken: 30
Country: Australia
Minimum Days Required: 20
Average Vacation Days Taken: 25
Country: Italy
Minimum Days Required: 20
Average Vacation Days Taken: 30
Country: Britain
Minimum Days Required: 20
Average Vacation Days Taken: 25
Country: China
Minimum Days Required: 15
Average Vacation Days Taken: 15
Country: Japan
Minimum Days Required: 10
Average Vacation Days Taken: 17.5
Country: United States
Minimum Days Required: 0
Average Vacation Days Taken: 10.2
**paid leave after 3 years

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Vacation Days
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 07 2006 @ 08:32 PM MDT
Figures...CEO's of corporations and of course our President "W" take tons of time off. But what does the average working man in America get...SQUAT when it comes to recreation and leisure time off PAID BY THE COMPANY.The European countries treat their working people right. Good time off and complete healthcare coverage in return for a hard days work.Whens the next jet to Italy, Sweden or Australia? Can't go to France, they don't like us there!

Vacation Days
Authored by: admin on Monday, August 07 2006 @ 11:17 PM MDT
I assume the original comment was in response to a recent article in the Oshkosh Northwestern and discussion that has been going on among some citizens off and on for about a year or so about salaries and benefits paid to city and county workers?
- Cheryl

Vacation Days
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 08 2006 @ 08:04 AM MDT
Cheryl,Where do you stand on the Oshkosh City employees wage and benefit issue?An interested observer.

Vacation Days
Authored by: admin on Tuesday, August 08 2006 @ 08:34 AM MDT
Aonymous,
It seems to me the small employee contributions toward benefits are out of line, as are perhaps wages for some of the positions, but certainly not all. I appreciate your curiosity in my position on this issue, but I think more appropriate people to ask about this situation are those who make the decisions: our city administration and, utimately, the city council. Have you spoken with them to find out their stance and, if so, what have you been told?
- Cheryl

Vacation Days
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 08 2006 @ 09:04 AM MDT
Yes I have. Unfortunately it appears most council members are as uninformed as I am regarding the "Binding Arbitration" laws. When I push them for their position, I feel most feel the way you do, but quickly toss their hands in the air and are willing to defer to the arbitration laws. I feel we may have some inept city negotiators that are not fighting for the best interests of the average tax payer. The council just rubber stamps the process and the result is nothing changes in the favor of the Oshkosh resident.

Vacation Days
Authored by: DRR on Tuesday, August 08 2006 @ 09:15 AM MDT
We need to concentrate on the benefits city employees receive. They are out of line with the private sector. I am far less concerned with the wages they receive. A few seem to be out of line. Brace yourself for a whole new line of fees if the garbage tax is voted down.

Vacation Days
Authored by: admin on Tuesday, August 08 2006 @ 09:31 AM MDT
On THAT particular point (about the new fees if the garbage fee is prohibited in the coming year), I couldn't agree more. We're already seeing what city hall and some of its administration/department heads are proposing. There will be no end in sight to the new fees that will be created. While I do not like the idea of a garbage fee, I think Miles Maguire at Oshkosh News.org said it best when he said it shouldn't be an "all or nothing" referendum. We need to put a lot of the blame for these problems on our legislators in Madison. This is more their doing than anyone else's. Second, we need to bring some of these benefits public sector employees receive more in line with the private sector. Finally, we need to recognize that communities are caught between a rock and a hard place in many respects because of the levy freeze. So if we have to pay more for something along the way, I'd rather see my taxes increase a little than more fees. At least on the property tax bill, the taxes are deductible on our income tax returns. Not so with the fees. That's an even greater slap in the face of taxpayers. 'Course the taxes can only go up so much in the face of the levy freeze. Ain't Madison grand?
- Cheryl

Vacation Days
Authored by: NewVoice on Thursday, August 10 2006 @ 04:59 PM MDT
What do you mean by out of line? That benefits are too high or too low compared to the private sector?

Vacation Days
Authored by: Kent Monte on Tuesday, August 08 2006 @ 11:28 AM MDT
This was posted on my site last night and I took some time to do some background on wages in the UK. They make quite a bit less than here in the US.
My source is WageIndicator.org which links to paywizard.org
Welder-UK $22,429 US $44,725
Mechanic-UK $22,716 US $51,108
Bus Driver-UK $18,974 US $37,544
That is 3 of the jobs that were compared earlier. As you can see, Americans make DOUBLE what Europeans make. I did convert to dollars for those that are wondering.I didn't have a whole lot of time to spend on this so I would welcome someone else to dig some and see what they come up with.
K. Monte

Vacation Days
Authored by: DBCooper on Tuesday, August 08 2006 @ 08:48 PM MDT
If I go to paywizard.com, then "Check my pay now", then "metal and electric trades", then "welding trades", it tells me that "the gross earnings for people doing the same job as 'welder' are on average = 17447.20". That, of course is in "pounds" as paywizard is a GB site.The conversion factor today is 1 great britain pound = 1.89885 united states dollars.Therefore, 17447.20 * 1.89885 = 33129.31 us dollars.How did you arrive at $22429?When I look up the position of welder in the US, (using wageindicator.org) $44240 is the number that I found, it is for welders in the top 10% of the pay range. The "mean" is considerably less, $33650. I don't think $44240 is typical for the Fox Valley, I think it's closer to the mean.What they call gross wages in GB and what we call gross wages in the US appear to be 2 different things. In the US, gross wages is what you get paid. Net wage is what's left that you put in the bank, we all know that.At the bottom of the information on paywizard.com is a disclaimer that says"We assume that a full-time standard working week is 40 hours. The outcome does not include:"* Holiday pay* Bonuses, commission, tips* Pension contributions* Tax or national insuranceThat statement is only found on the GB site, not on the US site.Does outcome mean the same as gross??? That's how I'm interpretting it.If their (gb) wage information does not include holiday pay, taxes, etc, then we can't really use this as a basis for comparison unless we know what those numbers are.

Does anybody want to guess why they changed their definition of "gross pay" to not include taxes? Might be it was too distressing to see how much was actually being paid in taxes???
DBCooper

Vacation Days
Authored by: Kent Monte on Tuesday, August 08 2006 @ 09:11 PM MDT
Actually I googled a conversion for the currency. I have no idea what the current exchange is. I relied on that site to be accurate in this case. I was not looking to exchange my own money and didn't have a lot of time on my lunch hour to spend looking at which site I was on or how accurate the current exchange rate was.The salary comparison is from Salary.com and using 54904, Oshkosh as the location. That is the numbers that they gave me. I have no reason to doubt it.Either way, the claim on my post from anonymous stated that Europeans make less money but get more vacation. Even using your numbers, that is true. It just narrowed the gap.Does it really matter? We need to stay on course and ensure that our council and staff go into these negotiations with one thing in mind, The union MUST be willing to bend on something. The city cannot afford to continue filling their pockets with cash and benefits that nobody in this region can come close to matching.
K. Monte