Trod, it applies to most types of worker. If you want to work >48 hours/week (LOL), you can sign an opt out clause. Also, the 48hrs/week isn't a rigid measure that applies to every week, it's an average over, I think, a 17 week period, so all the Act does is give workers the right to say "No" to employers who want to exploit them without paying them any more - seems like a good thing to me.

Typical UK first jobber gets 3- 4 weeks off, gaining extra days with length of service. It would be illegal here for an employer to force an employee to take sick days as holiday, thank God.

Northview - new legislation this year made 20 days + public holidays the statutory minimum for full time employees

When I said that American workers make more than Europeans, I was talking about total salary, not hourly wage. Thats the whole point.

It was a long time ago that I lived in Germany but when I was there, I always got the feeling the Europeans thought of Americans as rich and they had a bad attitude towards us becuase of that. My point was that if Americans are "rich" its because we work more, so Europeans shouldnt feel like Americans have some sense of entitlement to be rich. We just work more. Thats all.

You may be right about the GIs with tailored uniforms and spending lots of money, but just because they spent lots of money doesnt mean they were rich, it means they were 18-23 year olds with no responsibilites who blew all of their money on stupid stuff which maked it look to the casual observer like they had alot of disposable income.

When I was in the Army I never saw so money fools spend their paychecks so fast. I used to give out high interest loans to carry them until payday

What do you mean when you say you get 11 sick days per year? Is that how many days you are "allowed" to be sick? If so, how do they come up with that number, and what happens if you're sick for 12 days or more?

Here it's 25-30 working days vacation, plus all holidays of course (dunno how many they are really). If you're sick you get 80% of your pay and there's no limit on how many days you can be sick for. Since our unions are very strong there's a lot of job security, meaning it's very hard for a company to fire someone.

Our version of the "minimum wage" is about $13.50/hr. Basically we have a much flatter economic profile on our population. A doctor will make like $50/hr, a teacher $25/hr and a janitor like $18/hr. So a person who has a "normal" high paying job will make less than 3 times as much as a person who has a "normal" low paying job.