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Written by Dr Eamonn Butler
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Thursday, 23 August 2007 |
An extra three bank holidays and paid paternity leave are apprently
among ideas that have been considered by a Conservative policy group,
Channel 4 News reported recently. It had seen an early version of ideas
being submitted to quality of life review group, but party insiders
said the ideas had not reached the final report.
Good. We don't need new bank holidays. Indeed, we should scrap the
existing ones, and let employees negotiate their own holidays.
The trouble with bank holidays is that they are the same for everyone.
So, around this weekend in August, for example, the entire UK
population gets into its cars and heads for the beach. But of course
the traffic is so severe that few of them ever make it. If people had
exactly the same holiday entitlement, but could choose when they took
it, the dash to get away would be more evenly spread out, and the roads
and airports less congested. And, indeed, people would not have to take
their holiday on a Monday if it did not suit them: they could pick
another day of the week, or even lump their holidays together.
In a cash-only society, closing the banks meant businesses couldn't
operate, so all workers got time off. And so it continued, until Jim
Callaghan's administration decided to make the unions happy with a new
May Day bank holiday – leaving us with far too many holidays in rainy
April and fickle May, rather than in sunny (well, sometimes sunny)
June, July, and August. Various other holiday suggestions have been
made – such as Shakespeare's birthday or the anniversary of the Battle
Trafalgar (which would at least irritate the French). But nobody ever
suggests scrapping an existing holiday to compensate. Politicians fear
the public would resent their bread and circuses being snatched away.
Bank holidays are a travel nightmare, and the system is jumbled,
paternalistic, and out of date. In the modern world of business and
employment, where flexibility is key, it should go, and free agents in
the labour market should agree their own.
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