Their example was not widely imitated. Coverage of salaried workers under vacation plans continued to grow much more rapidly than coverage of manual wage earners. A careful survey in the mid1920's found about 200 American manufacturing firms-a very small fraction of the total-that granted paid vacations to their blue-collar workers. There was a gradual further extension of vacations to wage earners in the late 1920's but the great crash of 1929 and the ensuing depression held back the movement toward wider coverage. By 1935, it was estimated that only about 10 percent of manufacturing firms had established vacation plans for their hourly paid blue-collar workers. In sharp contrast, about 80 percent of these firms had such plans for their salaried employees."

From 1935 on, however, the status gap between white-collar workers and blue-collar workers with respect to the paid vactation benefit narrowed abruptly. By 1937 the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the number of vacation plans covering wage earners was triple the number existing in 1934.6 The main factors responsible for this sudden flowering of vacation plans were undoubtedly the rapid growth of union membership in the mid-1930's and the New Deal legislation, particularly the Wagner Act of 1935, which encouraged and protected union organizing efforts. Many employers instituted paid vacations for their blue-collar workers in the possible hope that this benevolence would help to allay unrest among their workers and immunize them from the appeals of union organizers.

By the end of 1940, vacation plans had spread sufficiently that they were estimated to cover about 50 percent of nonagricultural manual wage earners." Then the entry of the United States into World War II precipitated a surge of growth in coverage. Between early 1942 and the middle of 1945, the War Labor Board approved the creation of vacation plans in firm after firm whose hourly paid workers had never before received this benefit. While it held the line reasonably firmly against direct wage increases in wartime, the WLB was willing to allow certain fringe benefits-even though they involved supplemental labor costs to spread widely through American industry. Unions responded accordingly, in framing their bargaining strategies. As a leading authority on World War II labor negotiations has put it:

The unions*** pressed for vacations in collective bargaining with an eye to what was allowable under Government controls. In the final analysis, it was the wartime economic policies of the Government, in restricting wage increases but permitting fringe benefits, that provided the motivation and the WLB that provided the machinery, by which the unions extended vacations to the rest of American workers.8

When the war was over, not a great deal of room was left for further extension of vacation coverage. At the end of 1945, more than 90 percent of nonagricultural hourly wage earners were estimated to be employed by firms including them in paid vacation plans.9

Mills, Charles M., "Vacations for Industrial Workers," Ronald Press Co., 1927, p. 33.

Allen, op. cit., p. 51.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Vacations With Pay in Industry, 1937," Bulletin R-903. Government Printing Office, 1939, p. 8.

7 Allen, op. cit., p. 75.

Allen, op cit., p. 125.

Allen, op. cit., p. 103.

Liberalization of Vacation Plan Provisions

During the two decades that have passed since the end of World War II, the primary thrust in the continuing development of the paid vacation as a fringe benefit has shifted from extension of coverage to improvement of the terms on which vacations are provided American workers. The terms most prevalent today are in striking contrast to those typical in the vacation plans of 20 to 30 years ago.

In 1940 the majority of those collective bargaining agreements which contained a paid vacation plan provided for a maximum vacation of no more than 1 week-regardless of a worker's length of service with his employer.10 But, during World War II, the War Labor Board generally adhered to a more liberal two-step formula in its decisions concerning vacation plans. The WLB commonly prescribed 1-week of annual vacation for employees of at least 1 year's standing and 2 weeks for those with 5 or more years of service.11 The 2-week annual vacation, considered for years to be the "standard" vacation, was thus a benefit that had come to be possessed by great numbers of medium-to-high seniority wage earners at the close of the war.

In the early postwar years, the annual paid vacation was a prominent subject of union-management negotiations-relatively more prominent then than it has been in the 1950's and 1960's, when collective bargaining has focused so heavily upon fringe benefits as pensions, health insurance, and severance pay. In 1947-48 union negotiators began making progress toward lengthening the maximum vacation period beyond the 2-week standard laid down by the War Labor Board's decisions in 1942-45. By 1949, a large number of collectively bargained vacation plans provided a 3-week annual vacation for workers with 10 years of service. Moreover, the eligibility requirement for a 2-week vacation was now being whittled down in many plans from 5 years of service to 2.12

These two liberalizing trends-toward longer periods of vacation and shorter periods of employment required for eligibility-have continued from the first years after World War II up to the present. They have caused the great majority of vacation plans to be revised, many of them repeatedly, in this 20-year period. Progressive liberalization has characterized not only the vacation plans under collective bargaining agreements, but also those maintained unilaterally by employers. As in the case of wage increases, it is impossible to measure the extent to which widespread union success in negotiating improved vacation plans has been responsible for decisions by nonunion employers to grant better vacation terms to their workers. But most nonunion firms would undoubtedly have found it difficult, if not impossible, to maintain the status quo with respect to vacations, in the face of the marked changes that occurred in vacation plans covering unionized workers.

The extensive postwar liberalization of vacation provisions has proceeded steadily but undramatically, and has attracted far less attention and discussion than the developments in retirement plans, health insurance, and other fringe benefits that were virtually unknown for manual workers before the war. The cumulative impact of the vacation movement, however, has been very substantial. This im

10 Henle, Peter, "Recent Growth of Paid Leisure for U.S.Workers,"Monthly Labor Review, March 1962, p. 253. "Allen, op. cit., p. 113.

1 Allen, op. cit., p. 156.

pact was noted in a detailed study conducted several years ago by Peter Henle, of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Henle estimated that the number of full weeks of paid annual vacation actually taken by American workers rose by more than 50 percent from 1948 to 1960, while the civilian labor force grew only 15 percent.13 According to his calculations, division of the estimated number of full weeks of vacation by the average level of civilian employment during the year yielded an average of 0.9 weeks of vacation per employed person for 1948, and 1.3 weeks for 1960.14 Though a high degree of precision cannot be claimed for these figures, they indicate beyond question, that there has been an impressive postwar increase in the length of vacation typically enjoyed by those workers who do take a paid vacation during the course of a year.

Henle's study also pointed up the relative contribution made by the growth and liberalization of paid vacations to the long-term increase in leisure time in the United States. Comparing the years 1940 and 1960, he estimated that in 1960 American workers received approximately 10 billion more hours of leisure time than would have been theirs had there been no changes since 1940 in average weekly working hours, paid annual vacations, or paid holidays. In summarizing the trends of this 20-year period, he concluded:

There was no major shift in the standard workweek. Perhaps the most significant development was that more than half the total gain in paid leisure resulted from increased vacation and holiday time, rather than from a reduction in working hours. This is a definite shift from the pattern of earlier years and seems to indicate that leisure time preferences are leaning more to additional whole days each year rather than additional minutes each day.15

Writing in 1962, he predicted that "Providing a greater number of days off seems likely to continue to receive greater emphasis than reducing the time spent each day at work." 16

Vactions of 3 Weeks or Longer

With the 2-week annual vacation having become commonplace, for manual as well as white-collar workers, by the end of World War II, the most striking postwar movement has been the progressive displacement of the 2-week maximum by longer periods of vacation. The largest scale surveys of vacation practices that have been made in recent years emphasize the growing importance of the annual vacation of 3 or more weeks.

17

The series of postwar studies by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of paid vacation provisions in "major" union contracts-those covering 1,000 or more workers each-illuminates the trend toward longer vacations. In 1949, approximately 33 percent of the graduated " vacation plans contained in these major contacts provided a maximum vacation, for long-service workers, of more than 2 weeks. By 1952 the proportion of plans with maximum vacation periods of 3 weeks or more had grown to 50 percent. By 1957, these plans were in the overwhelming

13 Henle, op. cit., p. 256.

14 These calculations are, of course, statistical averages and do not mean that the typical American worker received 0.9 weeks of vacation in 1948 and 1.3 weeks in 1960. The total number of persons in the civilian labor force at some time or another in any year is well above the average level for the year, and a substantialthough unknown-proportion of this total is not in the labor force or in the service of one employer long enough during the year to qualify for a vacation.

15 Henle, op. cit, p. 257.

10 Henle, op. cit., p. 257.

majority, constituting 84 percent of the total. And, in the Bureau's 1961 survey, 18 92 percent of the plans provided a maximum of 3 weeks or more.19 Postwar collective bargaining has thus swept away the onetime standard 2-week vacation.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics' surveys of terms of employment of workers, union and nonunion, in a wide range of industries in our major metropolitan areas show the pervasiveness of the postwar movement toward longer vacations. Within less than 10 years after the war, by 1952-53, approximately 71 percent of the officeworkers and 58 percent of the plantworkers in the establishments surveyed in 18 of the country's largest metropolitan areas were under vacation plans which provided a maximum vacation of 3 weeks or more. By 1961-62, in these 18 metropolitan areas, the proportions had risen to 92 percent for officeworkers and 84 percent for plantworkers.20 The overwhelming abandonment of the old 2-week maximum standard vacation by large American business firms is documented by the National Industrial Conference Board's most recent study, published in 1965, of paid leisure time. The NICB surveyed the annual vacation plans of approximately 930 of our largest corporations, in six industrial sectors-manufacturing, public utilities, banking, insurance, wholesale trade, and retail trade. Of these, about 93 percent provided maximum vacations of 3 weeks or longer. The proportions ranged from 78 percent in wholesale trade to 98 percent in both manufacturing and public utilities. While a broader sampling of American business firms, including small as well as large, would undoubtedly have shown a lower percentage providing maximum vacations of 3 or more weeks, the vacation practices currently prevailing in large corporations are particularly significant, since they blaze the path which smaller employers inevitably will feel pressure to follow.

The 4-Week Maximum Vacation

21

So far, the data presented have described the general growth of plans which specify a maximum vacation period of at least 3 weeks. In recent years a major aspect of this growth has been the rapid spread of the 4-week annual vacation as the ultimate reward of longservice employees. This development has been proceeding at such a pace that the majority of American workers in private industry can reasonably be expected, within a few years, to be covered by plans that hold out to them the promise of a 4-week annual vacation-if they remain long enough on the payroll of one employer.

Provision for a vacation period of as much as 4 weeks was almost unknown in the collective bargaining agreements negotiated in the early postwar years, as indicated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' 17 A "graduated" vacation plan is one in which the length of a vacation increases, in one or more steps; as the employee's years of service increase. Virtually all "major" union contracts outside the construction industry provide vacation plans, and of these over 90 percent are "graduated" plans.

This 1961 BLS survey analyzed approximately 1,700 such "major" contracts, covering a total of nearly 7.5 million workers. These 7.5 million constituted around 45 percent of all American workers covered by collective bargaining agreements in 1961.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Paid Leave Provisions in Major Contracts, 1961," Bulletin 1342, Government Printing Office, 1962, p. 2.

A broader BLS survey for the same period, 1961-52, covering 80 metropolitan areas, found 87 percent of officeworkers and 76 percent of plant workers under vacation plans with a 3-week or greater maximum. Since the major metropolitan areas, as a group, are consistently pace setters in the improvement of wages and fringe benefits, an 80-area survey would be expected to show a somewhat lower average level of vacation benefits than a survey confined to 18 of the largest arees.

National Industrial Conference Board, "Time Off With Pay," studies in personnel policy, No. 196, 1965.

1949 survey of paid leisure time provisions in major union contracts. By 1952, however, the 4-week maximum had won a small beachhead, which would prove to be rapidly expandable. The 1952 Bureau of Labor Statistics survey of major union contracts showed that 4 percent of those containing graduated vacation plans specified a maximum vacation of 4 weeks.22 In the next 5 years, this percentage leaped up dramatically. In the 1957 BLS survey of major contracts, 20 percent of the graduated vacation plans provided a 4-week maximum. And, within 4 more years, the proportion doubled. By 1961, the 4-week maximum vacation was incorporated into 43 percent of the graduated vacation plans established in major union contracts. Thus, in a dozen years from 1949 to 1961-the collectively bargained 4-week vacation rose from virtual nonexistence to a position from which it promised soon to become a feature in the majority of major union

contracts.

The BLS survey of wages and fringe benefits in 18 of the largest metropolitan areas confirm, for a broad sample of unionized and nonunion firms, the same trend shown in the major collective bargaining agreements. The BLS survey for 1952-53 found 7 percent of plantworkers and 19 percent of officeworkers under vacation plans with a 4-week maximum. Nine years later, the 1961-62 survey of these 18 metropolitan areas showed a sharp increase in these proportions-to 32 percent for plantworkers, and 47 percent for officeworkers.24 While the 4-week maximum has spread rapidly among both categories, the relative gain had been greater for plantworkers-reflecting the steady erosion of the old status differential between white- and bluecollar workers with respect to vacation benefits.

The increasing adoption of the 4-week vacation by large American corporations is emphasized by the National Industrial Conference Board in its 1965 publication reporting on vacation practices in over 900 firms. "Perhaps the most important development in corporate vacation programs over the past decade," the NICB states, "has been the marked trend to a 4-week maximum. In a 1956 Conference Board survey, only 15 percent of the manufacturers provided a 4-week vacation, while two-thirds of the manufacturers in the current study do so." 25 Of the 930 corporations surveyed in the 1965 study, 554approximately 60 percent had vacation plans with a 4-week maximum.26 By industry sectors, the proportions ranged from 26 percent of the firms in wholesale trade to S3 percent of the public utility corporations.

Eligibility Requirements for Vacations of 3 or More Weeks

As the preceding discussion shows, the 3-week vacation has thoroughly displaced the 2-week as the prevailing maximum in vacation plans and, in turn, the 4-week maximum now appears to be well on its way to displacing the 3-week limit. However, the fact that a

22 U.S. BLS Bulletin 1342, p. 2. (Same reference as for footnote No. 19.) 23 Idem, pp. 1-3.

24 "Hours of Work," hearings before the select subcommittee No. 1.)

25 National Industrial Con erence Board, op. cit.

, p. 90. (Same reference as for footnote

28 More precisely, 540 corporations specified a 4-week maximum, while 14 provided a maximum vacation of 5 weeks or more. This recent NICB study thus indicates that only a very small fraction of business firms-even in a group whose average level of vacation benefits is higher than that of the mass of employershas yet ventured beyond the 4-week maximum. Evidence to the same effect is provided by the 1961 BLS survey of major collective bargaining agreements, which found only 1⁄2 of 1 percent of workers covered by these agreements under vacation plans which provided a maximum vacation in excess of 4 weeks. While the shift of vacation plans from a 3- to a 4-week maximum may well continue at the substantial pace, it appears unlikely that there will be a widespread movement to break the 4-week limit in the near future.