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does the 3-week-or-more annual vacation appear to be less common than the 2-week vacation.

In the five English speaking countries, by contrast with continental Europe, the 2-week annual vacation still appears to be the norm. However, particularly through collective bargaining (and, in Australia, through awards under that country's compulsory arbitration law), the 3-week vacation practice has begun to spread in these nations also.

The custom of giving a minority of long-service employees the privilege of a longer period of vacation now has relatively little support abroad. In this respect, the prevailing foreign practice is in notable contrast to that of the United States. In those countries where 3- and 4-week annual vacations are required by law, they are generally given to all workers, regardless of length of service. In part, this may be due to the obvious administrative difficulties for both the employer and the Government-that would be entailed by a vacation law with an elaborate set of differential benefits graduated according to the years of service of the individual employee. However, it also testifies to rejection, in most of the foreign countries surveyed, of the questionable proposition that a 3-weeks-or-more vacation is a reward only for the worker who has earned it through years of long and faithful service to one employer. In Scandinavia particularly, a long annual vacation-taken, whenever possible, during the summer season in these Northern countries-is so highly prized for its social and human values that it would be unthinkable to restrict it to a minority of high-seniority workers.

As a logical corollary to the treatment of short- and long-service employees alike with respect to the length of their annual vacation entitlement, vacation laws abroad usually make explicit provision for workers who are not continuously employed by one employer throughout the year. In this respect also, the foreign legislation deviates sharply from the custom in the United States, where an employer typically gives paid vacation time only to full year-round employees who have completed at least 1 year's service. As this survey shows, the customary practice abroad is to prorate the vacation crediteven for very short-term employees. Thus, a worker leaving a job during a year must be paid-in cash, or in stamps, if under a vacation book scheme for an amount of vacation time proportional to the part of the year worked. This practice is based on the view that every employee is earning his annual vacation continuously as he works, and that there is no defensible reason for expropriating from some workers the vacation time they have so earned, merely because the nature of their occupations or other conditions, have caused them not to spend the entire year with one employer.

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A feature that is common to the large majority of the foreign vacation laws surveyed is their broad coverage of the labor force. They reflect a determination to assure the benefit of an annual vacation to every worker possible. The one striking point of difference with the United States, is that both agricultural workers and domestic ser

This view has support in the United States also, under certain circumstances. For example, when a business firm that is party to a collective bargaining agreement shuts down operations or moves its plant to a new location, thereby terminating the agreement, American courts have generally ruled, in such cases, that the employees covered by the agreement are entitled to a pro rata share of their annual vacation pay corresponding to the time worked during the year before their jobs were eliminated.

(See: David R. Levett, "Treatment of Monetary Fringe Benefits and Post Termination Survival of the Right to Job Security," Yale Law Journal, November 1962.)

vants-two groups of wage earners traditionally excluded from the scope of much of the labor legislation in this country-are treated equally with other employees under most vacation laws abroad.

The rate of pay stipulated by foreign legislation for a worker on vacation is typically the same as is customary in the United States; i.e., his regular, straight-time wage or salary. Approximately this rate is prescribed in some countries by a formula that makes the total pay for the annual vacation period a percentage of the employee's earnings for the year; e.g., 6.5 percent of earnings, for a vacation of 3 weeks. However, a broad trend toward paying vacationing workers more than their normal earnings may eventually materialize. Belgian law now requires pay at double the usual rate, for the first 2 weeks of annual vacation. And, in Norway and Sweden, unions have recently sought agreements from employers which would raise vacation pay, for a 4-week period, to 9.5 percent of annual earnings. Since one of the major purposes of the longer annual vacation is to afford workers and their families an opportunity to travel, it will not be surprising if a growing number of nations become converted to the view that an employee should receive more than his normal pay, if he is to be able to take proper advantage of his vacation time.

Finally, it is important to note, the prevalence of vacation legislation in these countries surveyed does not entail either the removal of vacation benefits from the scope of collective bargaining or the rigid imposition of uniform vacation practices on all industries and occupations. Vacation laws specify minimum requirements only-leaving employers and unions free to develop many varieties of vacation plans that meet or exceed these requirements.60 As this report has pointed out, many vacation laws abroad explicitly refer to collectively bargained vacation terms as welcome alternatives or supplements to those imposed by law.

It is thus clear from this survey that a nation does not have to make a mutually exclusive choice between having vacation legislation or leaving the question of annual vacations entirely to be resolved by collective bargaining or unilateral management decision. On the whole, the organized labor movements in the 16 countries covered by this survey match the American labor movement with respect to proportion of workers unionized, bargaining power, or influence in national politics. Their support for the principle of vacation legislation has not been prompted by any impotence on their own part to win vacation benefits for their members, but arises instead from a conviction that such legislation is a socially beneficial means of assuring that an annual vacation is brought within the reach of virtually every worker.

APPENDIX: LEGALLY REQUIRED VACATION IN PUERTO RICO

The prevalence of legal requirements for vacations in the Western European and British Commonwealth nations discussed in this report is in marked contrast to the situation in the United States. However, legally required vacations can be found within the jurisdiction of the United States, in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

60 In some cases, liberalizing amendments to vacation laws appear to have been essentially legal codifications of changes in the prevailing terms under collective bargaining agreements; that is, as unions and employers have negotiated longer periods of annual vacation, legislators have followed by raising the legally required minimum.

Indeed, this study of foreign experience reveals that the formal structure of legally required annual paid vacations is commonly built on a preexisting structure of informal vacation practices. Vacation laws have not represented radical breaks with the past, but have grown out of the experience and customs of each country, as determined by collective bargaining and other influences.

In Puerto Rico, minimum wage boards have long been established. for most industries. Subject to certain limits laid down by the U.S. Congress in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and its subsequent. amendments, each minimum wage board is empowered to issue legally binding orders, for its industry, concerning minimum wages, maximum daily and weekly working hours, overtime premium pay, sick leave, and other terms of employment-including vacations.

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A minimum period of annual paid vacation has, in fact, been ordered by the majority of the Puerto Rican minimum wage boards, and most Puerto Rican workers, therefore, now have legally guaranteed vacations. The board orders prescribing vacations differ from one industry to the next, but they have tended to cluster fairly closely around a central pattern. The order applicable to the hotel industry, for example, is a representative one. The minimum wage board for this industry requires a 15-day annual paid vacation for each fullyear-round employee. This period is the equivalent of 3 weeks, or 22 weeks, depending upon whether the employee normally works a 5-day week. For every month in which he is employed as much as 120 hours-that is, an amount equal to three 40-hour weeks-the worker receives 14 days' vacation credit. If he resigns or is discharged, he must be paid for all unused vacation time he has accumulated even though he may have been employed no longer than 1 month.

The board requires that the entire annual vacation be taken in one continuous period, but that it be scheduled "in such manner as not to interfere with the normal operation of the business." 62 The board's order is also designed to discourage any agreement in which the employee is persuaded or pressured to give up his annual vacation, in return for extra pay or any other inducement. All such agreements are declared to be unlawful and void. Furthermore, unused vacation leave is forbidden to accumulate for more than 2 years. If an employer does allow an employee's vacation entitlement to build up for more than a 2-year period, he will be ordered-upon being detected in this violation-to promptly place the employee on vacation for the total time accumulated, and also to pay the employee twice his usual wage or salary for each additional day of vacation time to which he has become entitled beyond that accrued in 2 years. This double pay requirement makes it more costly for the employer to let a worker's accumulated vacation credit grow for more than 2 years, than for him to clear his books on each employee at least once in a 2-year interval. 63 A sampling of vacation clauses in Puerto Rican Minimum Wage Board orders for other industries shows that they generally have provisions basically comparable to those described for the hotel industry. They almost invariably protect the worker who leaves a

One notable exception is the construction industry. Unlike most European countries, Puerto Rico has not yet developed an arrangement for providing portable annual vacation credits in this industry where workers move so frequently from one employer to another.

The board thus gives the employer the option of selecting the times most convenient to him for his employees to go on vacation. In a tropical area such as Puerto Rico-as opposed to countries like Norway and Sweden-the giving of this option to the employer may entail very little disadvantage for the employee. The minimum wage board order for the Puerto Rican hotel industry entitles the worker, in fact, to be given his vacation every year. Only if he enters into an agreement, in writing, can his unused vacation time be accumulated by the employer for as much as 2 years.

This Puerto Rican rule would thereby allow a worker, if he and his employer agree, to take a 6-week vacation every 2 years, in lieu of 3 weeks every year. By contrast, some European vacation laws make it mandatory for vacations to be taken annually, and provide for forfeiture of any vacation time the worker fails of his own accord to use during the year in which it should be taken.

job during the year, by prorating his vacation entitlement and requiring the employer to pay him for his accumulated vacation credit. The rate at which vacation time accrues is typcially 1% or 1% days for each month worked; that is, 15 or 14 days of vacation annually. Not all boards follow the hotel industry board in stipulating 120 hours in a month as the qualifying amount of employment to earn vacation credit. In some orders, the amount is specified as 110 to 112 hours, for example or what constitutes a "month's employment" may be left undefined. Usually, the board orders contain the prohibitions found in the hotel industry against agreements whereby the employee waives his right to a paid annual vacation, and against the accumulation of unused vacation time for a period of more than 2 years.

This summary of the provisions characteristic of legally required annual vacations in Puerto Rico reveals an interesting feature: their close resemblance to certain provisions commonly found in European vacation laws. Puerto Rico, like most European countries, does not graduate the period of the employee's vacation according to his length of service. It considers the employee to have irrevocably earned a share of his annual vacation by each month he works, and requires him to be given all such accrued vacation pay upon termination of his job with any employer. It has established prohibitions and penalties aimed at assuring that workers actually take the vacations to which they are entitled, rather than continuing at work for extra pay. These points of similarity between legally required vacation provisions on both sides of the Atlantic suggest that these provisions have a wide appeal and that they would probably be given strong consideration for inclusion should vacation legislation be enacted in the United States.

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Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor ADAM C. POWELL, Chairman

72-545

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING CEASED THROUGH

DOC. EX. PROJECT

WASHINGTON: 1967

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