Most Americans Believe Employers Should Be Required To Give Workers Paid Vacation: Poll

WASHINGTON -- Americans overwhelmingly support the idea of requiring large U.S. employers to provide their workers with at least some paid vacation time, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll.

In a poll conducted ahead of Labor Day, 75 percent of respondents said they believe in placing such a mandate upon the business community. A mere 17 percent said they oppose it. The support crossed party lines to include 87 percent of self-identified Democrats and 65 percent of Republicans.

The United States is an outlier among the world's advanced economies in having no law to guarantee workers paid time off from work.

In a 2013 analysis by the Center for Economic and Policy Research looking at the U.S. and 16 European nations, America was the only country without some form of a vacation mandate on its books. European countries tend to guarantee workers four weeks' worth of vacation per year, and some countries offer as much as five or six. Canada mandates at least two weeks.

Most U.S. employers voluntarily offer paid vacation time to their workers, but many still opt not to. That's particularly the case in lower-wage industries like food service and retail, where workers are also less likely to receive paid sick leave. The same analysis by CEPR estimated that 23 percent of U.S. workers don't get any paid vacation.

Of the respondents to the HuffPost/YouGov poll who were currently employed, nearly one in three said they receive no paid vacation time through their jobs. Only 46 percent of all respondents said they had taken a vacation in the past year. (As a separate poll recently found, many of the American workers fortunate enough to receive paid vacation time choose not to take advantage of it for various reasons.)

There appears to be little appetite among Republicans or Democrats in Congress to place a vacation mandate upon businesses. In recent sessions, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) has introduced a bill that would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to guarantee most workers vacation time, but the legislation has gone nowhere.

Under Grayson's proposal, companies with at least 100 employees would be required to provide a week's vacation to full-time workers as well as part-time workers who have been employed for a year and log at least 25 hours a week. After three years, those companies would be required to offer two weeks of vacation to workers, while companies with at least 50 employees would be required to offer one week.

Grayson's bill likely has no chance of passing the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, where Republicans are loath to place any mandates upon the business community. And while many lawmakers are willing to back paid sick leave, not a single one of Grayson's Democratic colleagues has signed on as a co-sponsor to his vacation bill.

"We're really hurting ourselves, and specifically we're hurting the most vulnerable among us," Grayson told HuffPost last year, noting that low-wage workers are disproportionately without vacation time. "If every other advanced country can do this, so can we."

A HuffPost/YouGov poll from last year found nearly as much support among the general public for a paid sick leave mandate for employers. Seventy-four percent of respondents to that poll said that companies should be required to provide sick days to workers, while only 18 percent said they shouldn't. In recent years many U.S. cities have passed legislation that guarantees workers a certain amount of accrued paid sick leave, often over the strong opposition of business lobbies.

The HuffPost/YouGov poll was conducted Aug. 26-28 among 1,000 U.S. adults using a sample selected from YouGov's opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population. Factors considered include age, race, gender, education, employment, income, marital status, number of children, voter registration, time and location of Internet access, interest in politics, religion and church attendance.

The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov's nationally representative opinion polling. Data from all HuffPost/YouGov polls can be found here.

Worker To Starbucks: 'I'm Not Able To Parent The Way I'd Like To'

Changes to Starbucks’ erratic system for scheduling its workers' hours can’t come quickly enough for Allison Montgomery.

“Starbucks is not catering to parents at all, it’s been going on for a long time,” Montgomery said Wednesday during a segment on HuffPost Live. “You’re at the mercy of the software.”

Her woes mirrored those of Jannette Navarro, the single mother profiled in a New York Times story published last week that exposed the plight of Starbucks workers balancing home life with the chain's irregular hours.

Since becoming a barista at the coffee chain two years ago, Montgomery, a single mother in Chester, Pennsylvania, has struggled to get her four children to daycare. Her unpredictable hours caused her wages to fluctuate, making it impossible to accurately document her income for government benefits. Montgomery said she was "cut off" from state-funded child care subsidies in part because she couldn't provide proof of a regular source of income. After she lost access to a car, Montgomery woke up at 3 a.m. to safely deliver her kids to a babysitter before beginning her commute by two separate buses to work.

"I can't tell you how many times I've had to panic before work, getting a babysitter or calling out, being late," Montgomery said. "It's hard to find reliable, affordable daycare."

Montgomery said she pleaded with her manager to give her more consistent hours, but said "nothing could ever be done about it."

Last week, Starbucks vowed to update its scheduling software to make hours more consistent and enforce new guidelines to discourage managers from slotting the same workers for back-to-back open and closing shifts. In a company-wide email, Cliff Burrows, Starbucks’ president for the U.S. and Americas, also pledged to post shifts at least one week in advance.

But worker advocates said the promised changes failed to secure steady hours for employees.

"Our regional leaders are reaching out to Allison to learn more about her specific situation and how we can help," Zack Hutson, a Starbucks spokesman, told The Huffington Post on Thursday. "Our success is a direct result of the relationship our [employees] have with our customers, and we believe we have a responsibility to support them in balancing their home and work lives."

He did not immediately reply to questions about how soon updates to the company's scheduling software would take effect.

“I’m not able to parent the way I’d like to,” Montgomery said. “I would like to just have a normal schedule, something I can look forward to.”

Updated with a statement from Starbucks

Ugg Is Sick Of Being Pigeonholed For Its Boots

When most people think of Ugg boots, they picture this:

The company that makes Ugg boots would rather you picture this:

The model in this Ugg ad is wearing Ugg boots, but she is drawing on an $795 Ugg-branded sheepskin area rug with a $145 Ugg pillow on the chair behind her. Oh -- and she's Ernest Hemingway's great-great-granddaughter, sketch artist Langley Fox Hemingway.

Seeking to avoid the fashion dustbin of history, Ugg Australia is plugging away at diversifying its brand. It launches a new advertising campaign on Monday with the tagline "THIS IS UGG" in an attempt to portray Ugg as "universal," with items for men, women, kids and the home -- not just one style of sheepskin winter boots. In addition to Hemingway, the ads feature New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

Connie Rishwain, president of Ugg, told The Huffington Post in an interview this week that she doesn't want Ugg to be "stereotyped" as a mere footwear brand.

Indeed, the brand sells all kinds of stuff these days. Ugg debuted a home goods line in October: knit pillows, blankets and sheepskin rugs. In 2011, Ugg launched a pricier fashion line called Ugg Collection, made in Italy. In 2012, Ugg opened its first men's store. Rishwain said Ugg is trying to go for a year-round feel by offering products under the Ugg name that shoppers can use at different times of the year.

As a result, Ugg now sells a host of things to wear: Boots, slippers, sneakers, sandals, wedges, winter gloves and hats, coats, shirts and handbags. It includes pricey fashion items like $375 Italian leather harness boots and a $215 python-embossed calf hair clutch. You can even buy an puffy, fuzzy sleeve for a smartphone.

Of course, branching away from a core product isn't always a winning strategy. Another big shoe brand, Crocs, tried a similar move in 2009, but took things too far, the company admitted in July. By putting its name on so many different styles of shoes, Crocs strayed too far away from its heritage, bewildering customers by selling plastic, hole-punched clogs alongside fancy high heels.

Reflecting on the rise of Ugg boots in the mid-2000s, Rishwain said she loved all the press and PR when celebrities like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton were spotted with the classic sheepskin boot on their feet. But it's not 2003 anymore. A decade after Ugg boots became popular, few besides teenagers in Santa Barbara wear them like that, said Rishwain.

"We were really well known for that and it was photographed a lot," said Rishwain. "Ugg has really evolved over the years to be so much more than the boot."

Founded in California in 1978 as Ugg Imports, the boots burst into popularity in the early-2000s after being featured by Oprah Winfrey on her television show, sparking a teenage fashion frenzy. Deckers Outdoor Corp., which bought the brand in 1995 and is now Ugg's parent company, reaped the profit. In 2013, the brand raked in nearly $1.3 billion in sales.

Over the years, Ugg has fought constant criticism. The high fashion crowd has largely dismissed the boots as ugly. Podiatrists have said the boots don't provide proper support, leading to health problems. A U.K. judge warned that the boots are dangerous to wear while driving. Animal rights group PETA mobilized against Ugg, accusing the company of "extreme cruelty to animals."

In spite of it all, the brand has done quite well lately for Deckers. In July, it announced a 22.8 percent spike in Ugg sales to $123.3 million for the quarter, up from $100.4 million the same period the year before.

Sam Poser, an analyst at Sterne Agee, wrote in a note to clients that Deckers, which also owns brands Teva and Sanuk, is benefitting from a trend toward comfort, as clothes like stretchy leggings and yoga pants become increasingly popular.

"Products across brands and categories are gaining momentum," including Ugg, wrote Poser. "Deckers is set up well for the future."

As much as Ugg wants to branch out, it remains dependent on the original shearling boot it owes its success to. The Women's Classic Short boot, which sells for $155, remains the brand's best-seller.

According to the company's market research, Ugg needs the classic boot to attract first-time buyers, who then go on to buy other kinds of products. So, Ugg tries to keep the boot updated. Compared with its days as a teen fashion craze, the stout little booties are now a bit slimmer, with new soles. Designers have added styles with embellishments, bows, embroideries and buttons.

And that boot is here to stay, whether the haters like it or not. In interviews with HuffPost earlier this year, fashion psychologists and stylists told HuffPost that the classic Ugg boot has surpassed fad status, earning a permanent place on women's feet.

"They have become the winter flip-flop," fashion consultant Kate Schelter told HuffPost at the time. "A banal essential that people cling to out of comfort and freezing temperatures."