As I read the article title on Wall Street Journal, “Spain Plans to Burn Its Bridges to keep Vacationers on the Job—Blocking Workers from Linking Weekends to Midweek Holidays”. First thing that came to mind was the Spaniards blowing up physical bridges to save maintenance costs to able to afford for vacationers to come visit. I really couldn’t mentally picture this horrific act happening with the European structure and close communities, how would that be possible without any major ruins on their economy.
In reality for the Spaniards, the bridges are referred if a holiday falls midweek, well it’s been a tradition that the weekend will start from midweek and with a “bridge” of days giving them four days weekend to the actual the weekend of starting from Friday through Sunday. Spain refers to these weekend bridges as “Puente”. In consideration, Spaniards are also allowed siesta, relaxing time, and three hour lunches leaving longer working days. The Spaniards are granted fourteen public holidays and guaranteed a minimum of twenty-two additional vacation days paid, some articles adding up to fifty holidays or more. Most of their holidays are behind the origin of Catholic holidays. Whereas the Americans, our Memorial weekend or Labor Day fall on Monday perhaps some on Fridays, with the occasional two days off Thursday/Friday or Friday/Monday depending how gracious our employer is—mine not so much. I calculated between public holidays here in U.S. and with my company, came out to twenty-four paid vacation days and eleven public holidays.
If you haven’t had a chance to catch up on current events, Europe’s debt crisis all over headlines; the European leaders have considered that a way to reduce Spain’s workforce, spending, and unemployment, perhaps one consideration is by cutting out the Puente to help the Spanish with the slumped economy and avoid too many vacation days. Apparently other European leaders and businesses are talking that Spain has a reputation for always being on vacation and this is their tradition for years. This is who they are, not generalizing many or all Spanish workers but if you lived in Spain who wouldn’t want to vacation. I know I would love it; I may not be able to afford it but definitely would enjoy it. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy believes that cutting back on Puente it will save nearly twenty billion dollars on spending cuts and tax increases which was passed by the parliament this month. The plan has sparked attention about the tradition being changed, the problem is will the native’s habits allow them to adjust to compressing traditional linked to bridge weekends, or will it play an appropriate balance between work and play in a country where Gross Domestic Product is based off the tourism accounts for more than 10 percent. The main complaint is that Spaniard workers are not available to clients or colleagues due to the long weekends and many vacation days. The vacations have left some workers are hard to get a hold of, projects, meetings, and decisions are delayed, office closed, and productivity is low. Other businesses are having difficulty staying on track with business dealing with the Spaniard’s schedule of business.
Though, changing holidays may help the offices and salary paid workers as far as increasing productivity and possible increasing demand. Surely, it may help out with productivity and pacify to other European leaders but there is the other sector of business, the hourly-paid employees who are given this time off with no pay, no choice, and not working for days at a time decreasing their household income. Such as tour operators, airlines, restaurants, hotel workers who cater to bridgegoers. With the Europe debt crisis occurring, it nearly makes it impossible to survive or recover from missed pay periods depending on an hourly wage. These workers would be living from paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet playing catch up for lost work time if traditional vacation days are adjusted to the Eurozone.
