January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
Workers need longer vacations - agreed?
There's no evidence that people in Bermuda work longer hours than anybody else.
The average work week in almost every western country is over 40 hours, and the standard business hours are 9-5 or longer.
Trying to run a business, or deal with one, where working hours are shorter than everybody else's is infuriatingly difficult.
So a shorter week will simply mean less efficient businesses, and that employers will take even more advantage of workers willing and able to stay a little later for no extra pay.
But vacation times are a completely different story.
There' a huge variation from country to country in the amount of vacation people get, but Bermuda workers are certainly among the worst-off when it comes to time off. These figures are from the World Tourism Organization:
• Italy - 42 days
• France - 37 days
• Germany - 35 days
• Brazil - 34 days
• United Kingdom - 28 days
• Canada - 26 days
• Korea - 25 days
• Japan - 25 days
• U.S. - 13 days
I don't know that anybody's studied Bermuda vacation time, but I think we all know right down there with the United States, and probably worse.
Yet in Bermuda, the case for longer vacations is even more compelling than it is in most of these other places.
Our isolated geography means that workers - at least the "low end" workers most likely to be on a couple of weeks of vacation a year - can't "drive to the shore" or rent a cabin in the mountains: They either stay right in their own house, or have to travel overseas.
Besides, one quarter of the Bermuda workforce comes from overseas, which means they must (or really ought to, anyway) spend much of their vacation time visiting mothers or children or in-laws in far-away places.
And almost all the rest of us have close relatives living in the States or somewhere else overseas who we visit (or really ought to, anyway) during our vacations.
Taking a vacation ends up being a bit more of an expensive production, right from the get-go, when you happen to live in Bermuda.
It also means that our brief vacations are spent overseas, with none left over to enjoy a day off for a school sports day, watching a golf tournament, or helping an elderly relative move house.
Common sense tells us that a good balance between work and the rest of your life is important.
Scientists can back this up, time and time again.
Health benefits
For example, researchers from the State University of New York at Oswego recently conducted a survey of 12,338 men, aged 35 to 57, who had participated in a large heart disease prevention trial. They found that men who take vacations every year reduce their overall risk of death by about 20 per cent, and their risk of death from heart disease by 30 per cent.
Some men in the survey hadn't taken vacations in over five years. They had the highest death rates, and highest incidence of heart disease, of any of the participants. It's sad but true: Sometimes the reward for dedication and commitment is a premature death.
These kinds of stresses don't just affect individual's physical health, but the health of his relationships and his community too.
It's clearly not good when you have less time to spend with your family, your children, your spouse and your elders.
But it's also not good when you have less time to spend in your neighbourhood, in volunteer activities.
What's more, it is better for everybody if the time off is taken as vacation, rather than sick time or other unexplained, stress or morale-related absences, that infect so many workplaces.
It's obviously more enjoyable and healthful for the worker involved, but it is much better for the employer, who can plan and prepare for scheduled vacations.
There is, finally, this to be said about improving vacation and maternity leaves: We can afford it.
What is the point of having a successful and prosperous economy, if the only thing you can use your money for is over-priced real estate, over-priced high-fat take-out food, and over-priced nanny and day care services?
People with the highest per-capita incomes in the known world ought to be able to take a little more time off, for themselves and for their children.
What do you think? Send feedback on this story to editor Tony McWilliam: tmcwilliam
@bermudasun.bm
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