is a local author, professor at San Diego City College and vice president for the American Federation of Teachers, Local 1931. He lives in Golden Hill.
San Diego is a tourist city, so it’s easy for us to think that half the world is always on vacation as we make our way through crowds of out-of-towners in the Gaslamp district, onEl Prado in Balboa Park or at the beach. Indeed, as the calendar creeps past Memorial Day toward the solstice and beyond, many of us feel the pull of wanderlust or daydream about stealing a piece for ourselves of the radiant endless summer that our city’s boosters promote.
Sadly, the reality, for many American workers, is that the halcyon days of summer either never come or are in extremely short supply. Thethe richest countries in the world, but it is a No Vacation Nation when compared to other industrialized countries. As opposed to European governments like France, Spain, Germany or the United Kingdom, the U.S. does not federally mandate paid vacation days or holidays, leaving such decisions up to employers. Consequently, American workers take 14 days off a year on average, whereasIn general, Americans lack the same number of paid days off and have less family leave than workers in countries with comparable economies as the result of weaker labor protections, but also because of a workplace culture that valorizes the grind.
And today, despite whatever lessons the “great resignation” that the pandemic brought might have held, many of our political, cultural and economic leaders continue to have nothing to offer us but the unreconstructed gospel of the market in one form or another.