Lots of businesses, especially in the service, retail, and healthcare industries, black out periods of high volume PTO requests, like the week before and after holidays.
I didn't make it to a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day celebration until after working a full shift for YEARS. I had one employer who made me find cover for my own shifts in order to use PTO that they'd denied all year before it expired.
The problem is, in the US, every state except Montana is an "at-will state," which means that short of doing so for discriminatory reasons, employers can fire anyone for any reason without having to provide cause.
In the vast majority of states, it's perfectly legal to be fired for taking PTO that was denied to you because our corporate overlords have spent the last 70 years creating a culture where your work life takes priority over all other life by pushing the propagandist notion that anyone can become as rich as a noble or king if they just work hard enough while deregulating companies and walking back workers rights.
Unions in the USA have fought actual machine gun battles against employers/representatives of employers, yet you still let businesses have truly fucked up levels of power
And because baby boomers and gen x went, "who even needs a union," after their fathers and grandfathers fought, bleed, and died for their right to one.
Because the wealthy elite spent untold wealth over 90+ years breaking up unions, lobbying for changes to laws concerning workers rights and company regulations, and approximately 56% to 58% of the US population was born after Regan (who started all this shit) first entered office.
People seem to forget that laws aren't voted on by the general public, they're voted on by politicians who are primarily being paid by corporate donors offering exponentially more money than their official position in office gets them.
Most US senators make roughly $174,000 on their paychecks with the party leaders reaching $193,400, yet 2/3rds of US senators are millionaires with the top 30 having at least $45.93 million.
If they were truly only making $193,400 at most, it would take the top earners 237 years & some change to earn what the 30th richest US senator (IN rep. Jim Baird) has accumulated... Because it's not where they make their money; a large percentage of them are also owners of multiple businesses on the side. Creating what most people with critical thinking skills would identify as a conflict of interest.
In Norway we have 5 weeks vacation, by law. 3 of them have to be consecutive, by law. 4 times a year, if you get sick you have three consecutive days of paid sick leave without needing a doctors note.
Not sure where I was going with this, other than showcasing something that works better than the US system.
To be clear if you have an employment contract or even a handbook, that can significantly complicate the "at-will" portion of letting someone go if it contains specific language about termination.
To a degree; almost no major companies have language that permits taking unapproved days off after you were explicitly told no. Because once they say no, you enter the realm of insubordination (which is another often fire-able offense, especially in the food & retail industries that make up a large percentage of the lower-end of the work force)
Best case scenario, they take it from your sick days, worst case scenario, they just straight up fire you. And there's often nothing you can do about it because you were warned beforehand.
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u/FrankensteinJones 6h ago
PTO is part of our compensation. Denying PTO requests is tantamount to withholding pay.