Where to Invade Next

In his film, Where to Invade Next, Michael Moore travels around Europe to "steal" great ideas from different countries and bring them back to the U.S. He finds schools with no homework, free college, paid maturity leave, paid weeks off, free healthcare, decriminalization of all drugs, and more. Surprisingly, other countries have these policies and they lead to great success. One of the laws that I found very interesting is the paid time off. 

In Italy, the average worker receives about 7-8 paid weeks off, not including other perks such as 5 months paid maternity leave, 15 days off after your wedding, and a two hour lunch break everyday. In contrast, the U.S. guarantees zero paid days off by law, and no paid maturity leave. However, the interesting part about this is that the U.S. is not necessarily more productive and the workers are less happy. Their explanation for all of these great benefits is that they value happy people. They put the people's happiness first, and then good work results from that happiness. They way they speak of their policies also makes them sound like they value life milestones much more. For example, they think giving a new mother any less time with their newborn would be absurd. They recognize and respect that the first few months are very important for the mother to be with her baby. They also explained that of course newlyweds need 15 days off after their wedding because they have to go on a honeymoon. They spoke of this as if it is common knowledge and they wouldn't have it any other way. 

Now, just because the U.S. doesn't require paid days off by law, doesn't mean that most people don't get some paid time off. However, I don't think it would be a bad idea to adopt a law that sets a minimum for those who don't have those kind of benefits.