> Last I checked the USA didn't have mandated paid holidays, unlike literally every other country in the world.
The UK, Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, and ~57 other countries do not have mandated paid holidays. Norway provides for two days. It's certainly common, particularly in the developed world; claiming it's literally every other country is blatantly false.
I guess maybe I'm confusing what I'd call holidays with what people in other countries would call leave or vacation days. What I mean meant was mandated paid days off work, whether a holiday/public holiday/bank holiday or annual leave/vacation.
Workers in the UK are entitled to 28 paid days off work, the other countries you've listed have similar entitlements.
It turns out that I'm wrong either way, the USA is joined by Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and Tonga. So to be correct, literally every country apart from a handful of Pacific Island nations making up less than 1 million people and the USA entitle their workers to as least some paid leave from work.
In all those societies beyond the US, the same is true. In Belgium, for instance, union protection was initiated after the government protected management of a firm in Ghent, which systematically raped women working for them. This was known, and then a supervisor managed to not just rape one of the new hires, who chose to attempt to unionize the firm, but he also killed her. Note that she wasn't just raped once, and was not in fact killed on the first rape. The government refused to persecute him.
That caused protests against this practice, demanding justice. The government had the police fire into those protests, which of course was highly illegal, even at the time. They managed to kill the brother of the woman that was raped, which initiated the action that got Belgium one of it's major worker protections.
What action caused the government to change it's mind ? A mob kidnapped the entire management of the firm, tortured and hanged them, then marched on city hall, demanding the head of the entire city commission. The police commissioner, it is said, marched in and told them that, given that 2 of his officers had joined the people calling for their heads, they probably had about 48 hours before they too would be hanged.
Now you analyze the situation for yourself, and decide what you think happened. Did government "grant" those worker protections ? I tend to strongly disagree. It also illustrates the folly of trusting anyone but a lawyer you hire with making sure you actually get what you have the right to.
