Yesterday, Congressman Alan Grayson, Democrat of Florida, introduced the Paid Vacation Act of 2009.

We’re the only industrialized country without laws guaranteeing paid vacation time, so Grayson’s bill is an exciting development.

The Paid Vacation Act will require at least one week of paid vacation for employees at companies with at least 100 employees. Full- and part-time workers will be eligible after one year of service.

Three years after passage, the bill extends this requirement to companies with at least 50 employees, and requires two weeks for companies with 100 employees.

“Why are paid vacations good enough for the Chinese, French, Japanese, and German employees, but not good enough for us?” Grayson wrote in a press release. ” In other countries, it’s a matter of right. Everyone is entitled to it. In our country, it is a matter of class.”

It certainly is.

According to Opinion Research Corporation, only 69% of lower-wage workers get any paid vacation leave.

“This is a very modest bill,” says John de Graaf, executive director of Take Back Your Time, a non-profit that studies the overworked American. “But we support it wholeheartedly and congratulate Congressman Grayson for introducing it and helping open a dialogue about why vacations matter, how deprived Americans are when it comes to paid time off, and why we must act now to improve the situation.”

Take Back Your Time is seeking endorsements of the Paid Vacation Act of 2009 from private companies, citizen action organizations, and other groups and institutions. Contact John de Graaf at: jodg@comcast.net for more information.

This legislation comes on the heels of another piece of progressive legislation. Earlier this month the Healthy Families Act, which would require paid sick leave, resurfaced in Congress. Senator Ted Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, first proposed this during the Bush Administration but it went nowhere.

With an Obama Administration, we have the opportunity to pass legislation that will improve our lives. De Graaf met with Obama three years ago as part of a group of people to talk about work/life balance. He came away with the impression that Obama really understands the issue.

“His wife especially is very concerned about the work/life balance issue. But Obama is facing huge pushback from the other side,” says de Graaf.

And so is Grayson. A few weeks ago, Roll Call said Grayson is expected to be a top GOP target.

Polls reveal that Americans are 20% happier on the weekends. And for good reason: We are overworked.

Americans are working so much, in fact, that we barely take vacation. Last year, half of all Americans took less than one week off for vacation. We’re the only industrialized country without laws guaranteeing paid vacation time.

But in these times of economic uncertainty, how can we justify taking a vacation?

I put this question to John de Graaf, director of Take Back Your Time and co-author of Affluenza: the All Consuming Epidemic. He was my guest today on WORT’s noon call in program, “A Public Affair.” (Click here to hear the show.) Take Back Your Time, de Graaf’s nonprofit, studies the overworked American.

“These are the times in which this type of break is even more important because people are really stressed,” says de Graaf. “It’s clear that vacations—breaks from the workplace—are key de-stressors and we have a lot of evidence for that.”

For starters, time off is essential for one’s health.

Evidence shows that people who don’t take regular vacations are sicker. If you are male, you are 30% more likely to suffer a heart attack and 21% more likely to die by any cause at an early age if you don’t take vacation. If you are female, the odds are worse. Women who don’t take vacations are about 50% more likely to suffer from heart disease than those who do.

“When we look at depression, the statistics are pretty alarming,” says de Graaf. “The Marshfield Clinic, based in Wisconsin, did a study of 1500 women over time and found that women who regularly do not take vacations are one-half to one-third more likely to suffer from depression as women who do regularly take vacations. And if women haven’t had a vacation in five or six years, they’re some eight times as likely to be depressed as those who regularly take vacations.”

The current economic crisis offers the chance to start a conversation about the wreckage created by thirty years of market fundamentalism, deregulation, and tax cuts for the rich. “What I see bubbling up today is a lot of openness to new ideas and to the sense that it’s not working and we have to go in a different direction,” says de Graaf. “I think we have to organize to do that. We have to talk to our friends and neighbors.”

And we’re going to have to push Obama, too. He met with Obama three years ago as part of a group of people to talk about work/life balance. He came away with the impression that Obama really understands the issue.

“His wife especially is very concerned about the work/life balance issue. But Obama is facing huge pushback from the other side,” says de Graaf.

“We have to support our President where he’s doing the right thing and be critical when he’s not,” adds de Graaf. “And I think the bailout and financial payoffs to Wall Street is one place where he’s not.”

It’s easy to think that paid time off is just a white-collar issue. But it’s quite the opposite, as those in the lowest paying jobs are less likely to have paid sick leave or paid vacation.

“Some 31% of low income workers don’t receive any paid vacation time. 37% of women who earn less than $40,000 get no paid vacation time. So it’s definitely the poorest folks who don’t get the time,” says de Graaf. “Our national polling shows the strongest support for paid vacation time coming from poor Americans, African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, young people, and women. These are the groups who really believe we need vacation law in the United States.”

Take Back Your Time is organizing a national Vacation Matters summit this summer in Seattle. “Times of economic crisis like the one we face today are also opportunities to envision the kind of economy and life we really want and to ask what really matters when it comes to quality of life,” says the Right2Vacation website.

Take Back Your Time and the Right to Vacation campaign were discussed in the U.S. House of Representatives in late March. Alan Grayson, Democratic Representative from Orlando, Florida, cited the group and it’s proposed Minimum Leave Protection Family Bonding and Personal Well Being Act, which would mandate three weeks of vacation every year. De Graaf will be meeting with Grayson’s staff in the next few weeks to move forward.

Paid vacation “is absolutely not an upper middle class issue,” says de Graaf. “This is an issue of social justice.”

February 2 marks the halfway point between winter solstice and the vernal equinox. We’re officially at midwinter.

For those of us Wisconsin, it’s been a long cold winter already. The idea of only being halfway through seems daunting. I take solace in knowing gardeners and farmers are already at work planting seeds. Spring is inevitable even if the ice on the lake is a foot deep.

Midwinter was traditionally a time to take stock of what’s left in the larder. Is there enough to make it to spring?

This year, the economic crisis is forcing people to take stock of their stocks.

In the New York Times today, Andrew Ross Sorkin suggests giving bonuses to watchdogs: “Maybe someone deserves a bonus. Like someone who sniffs out the next Bernie Madoff. Or jousts with tomorrow’s gonzo bankers. Or defuses the Next Big Crisis in whatever Next Big Thing is dreamed up by Wall Street. Someone, in short, who regulates.”

Maybe not a bad idea. Greed regulating Greed.

Then on next page, there’s a story about how “bonus” really isn’t a bad word. “The bonus is a pillar of meritocratic capitalist system.”  Hmm. A French private jet doesn’t exactly scream meritocracy to me.

You know what sounds meritocratic to me? Vacation! Everyone deserves time off, but unfortunately, we are a No Vacation Nation.

Every other industrial country in the world has minimum paid vacation leave—except the United States.

As John de Graaf writes: “Americans get the shortest vacations in the industrial world — when they get them at all. A Harris poll found that only 14 percent of Americans were taking the traditional two-week summer vacation in 2007. Another survey completed by Gallup on behalf of The Conference Board, a corporate think tank, found that 40 percent of Americans didn’t take even a single week off as a block in 2006. More and more of us take what vacation days we have one by one, here and there, and use them to catch up on the errands for which our ever-increasing work demands leave little time.”

With the economy in shambles, it’s easy to think this is not a good time to advocate for legislation regarding paid minimum leave. But it’s the perfect time. We are re-thinking how to get the economy to work. We are re-thinking our family budgets. And we are probably re-thinking taking a vacation this year.

While we are re-thinking our consumption habits, let’s remember this: consuming doesn’t bring us happiness.

“Psychologists are finding little correlation between life satisfaction and increases in the Gross National Product that come from an emphasis on producing and consuming,” de Graaf writes. “On the other hand, having more time for friends and family consistently improves people’s subjective sense of well-being.”

The fine folks at Take Back Your Time are creating a new campaign: Right2Vacation. A June 2008 poll by the group found 69% of Americans saying they would support a law that would guarantee paid vacations for workers.

As de Graaf points out, “The struggle for vacation time comes down to a question of values. What is our economy for, anyway?”

What do we value? We value equality, community, family, our health. All of these will improve if we take more vacation.

Not taking vacation can be detrimental. From Take Back Your Time: “A growing body of evidence suggests that burnout is just one of the negative consequences of too little vacation time. Studies have firmly established that men who don’t take vacations are 32% more likely to die of heart attacks and women are 50% more likely. Lack of vacation time doubles rates of depression for women. After vacations, workers gain an hour per night of quality sleep and their reaction times are 30-40% faster, improvements that last for several months.”

But is vacation a luxury for the affluent? After all, lower-wage workers and part-timers are less likely to receive paid vacations, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Well, it doesn’t have to be. That’s why we need legislation mandating paid leave for everybody.

In order to stop and smell the roses, we need to plant seeds. Now is the perfect time.