TAKE BACK YOUR TIME is pleased to announce that Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) will introduce the Paid Vacation Act of 2009 at a news conference on the Cannon House Office Building Terrace in Washington DC at 11 a.m., Thursday, May 21, 2009.

WHAT THE BILL DOES:

• Requires one week of paid vacation for employees of companies with at least 100 employees. Three years after passage, the bill extends this requirement to companies with at least 50 employees, and requires two weeks for companies with 100 employees.


• Covers workers after one year on the job. Part-timers must work 25 or more hours a week and 1250 hours per year to be covered.

“This is a very modest bill,” says [Take Back Your Time Executive Director John] de Graaf. “But we support it wholeheartedly and congratulate Congressman Grayson for introducing it and helping open a dialogue about why vacations matter, how deprived Americans are when it comes to paid time off, and why we must act now to improve the situation.” He points out that a poll conducted last year by TAKE BACK YOUR TIME found that half of all Americans took less than one week of vacation last year. A quarter of all workers receive no paid vacation time at all and the average is less than two weeks. Meanwhile, the number of U.S. companies that offer paid vacation time has actually dropped in the past year.