The basic principle is --- you work, you get paid. If you're not working, you're not getting paid. Anything additional is a bonus at the discretion of the employer.
That's where I suppose the US and EU truly differ. The US generally goes for the "the market will solve it" approach. If you're a bad employer, nobody wants to work there, the company goes down and the competition wins. It's a beautiful theory IMHO.
The EU approach is sort of the same, but to add regulation on top to steer the market towards specific goals, like having a strong middle class. If, for example, a company doesn't suffer from being nasty to their employees (e.g. because they're a monopolist), regulation will be put in place to create that dynamic. I personally find this approach more feasible, but regulation can be worked around and sometimes backfire, it's not easy to get right.
Back to your point: It comes down to how much you get paid. If you work full time and can't afford vacation or sickness, is that OK?
If you think that's OK, we just disagree I suppose. There's a power imbalance between employers and employees that favours the employers. They have more money, expertise, legal counsel, negotiation power etc. Given the chance, they will pay as little as they can for labour, crush competition etc. I don't believe that's good for a country in the long run.
If you think it's not OK, something has to happen. Paying people more so they can save up money to deal with this is one approach. Assuming the risk of them not working (with paid vacation and sick days) is another one. In the EU, we tend to go down the latter route. I guess you could see it as patronising, but there is beauty in sharing and distributing personal risks. I'm personally fine with both solutions. I'm running a consultancy right now, so I've decided to take the first route, assume and manage my own risks.
I am not sure all these rules are for stronger middle class. I have always thought these are for low-paid workers at a warehouse, cleaning the streets, or alike. They are way more replaceable than some specialist. Yet the state offers protection for their time off which they deserve.
Yeah, maybe that was a bad example, I just meant that the government has certain goals for society and uses regulation to steer the market towards meeting them.
Historically, that stuff was put in place for factory workers in the industrial revolution I presume, though I'm very fuzzy on that. I'd argue good living conditions for low level workers help create a strong middle class through upward social mobility, but that's going off on a tangent perhaps.
A company having a monopoly on the labor market wouldn't be called a company, that's a collectivist state.
A company having a monopoly in the regular market doesn't really matter for employment: if you're terrible to your employees, it's not your customers you have to fear, it's the employees. They will leave and no new ones will join and you won't be doing any business if you don't have any employees to actually do the work you'll get paid for.
> I guess you could see it as patronising, but there is beauty in sharing and distributing personal risks.
But that's quite literally what insurance is made for. The only difference is that insurance adds some amount of accountability.
> A company having a monopoly in the regular market doesn't really matter for employment: if you're terrible to your employees, it's not your customers you have to fear, it's the employees. They will leave and no new ones will join and you won't be doing any business if you don't have any employees to actually do the work you'll get paid for.
Depends on the situation I suppose. If there's only one bakery corporation in your country and you're a baker, you can either work there, learn a new job or leave the country. It's a bit orthogonal for sure, but competition for talent is vital for good conditions for workers. Plus, a monopoly doesn't have to provide a good product or service, they just use their power to stifle competition. Suddenly their need for competent staff is greatly reduced.
> But that's quite literally what insurance is made for. The only difference is that insurance adds some amount of accountability
In my book, insurance is for unlikely, expensive events. In Germany for example, if an employee is sick for more than six weeks, the company no longer pays their salary, the health insurance takes over. It's likely that an employee is sick for a couple of days, not a case for insurance. Just how it's likely that an employee will want some vacation, also not a case for insurance.
I could however picture a system where companies only pay for the work employees actually do, and the funding for paid time off and sick days comes from some other source. Sounds intriguing. I believe everybody should be able to take some time off work for leisure and sickness, I see that as a human right. How exactly that's achieved, I'm personally very flexible there.
Um. If you are talking about the US, you realize it has more "socialism" than most EU countries?
- Do you choose your water company?
- How about your power company?
- TV?
- Internet? and can it be different than your TV?
- Cell?
There are probably more that I have forgotten to mention. But, at least where I live, there is a choice for every one of those items. And hey, there's also no Comcast here.
