Do employees of small businesses, like servers of small restaurants get the same benefits like vacations and maternity/paternity leave as big corporations?

4 comments

1. Yes, stuff like paternity/maternity leave is a right. It does not matter what your job is. As employee is a right you have

   Vacations depends in most cases on the “convenio collectivo” (which the translator says is “collective bargaining agreement”) which is negotiated between the unions and the “patronal” (employers’ organization)

2. Contrary to the U.S., in Europe things such as health insurance or maternity leave are not regulated via your job but via the government. So for example health insurance is something you’ve got regardless of whether you’ve got a job or not or what type of job you have. There’s no connection. Likewise, maternity and paternity leave is a right, which means every employee gets it.

   For certain things such as minimum wage or amount of paid vacation there are collective bargaining agreements (agreements between the unions of employees and unions of employers) BUT even for these things, there are certain governmental regulations that employers must stick to. For example the Swiss government prescribes a minimum of 4 weeks of paid vacation (for a full-time job). Collective bargaining agreements may go above this number (which they often do) and make 5 or 6 weeks the standard rule for a given branch of industry but they may never go below this number.

   This isn’t just true for small businesses btw, it’s also true for people who employ some type of personal “staff” (for lack of a better word). For example I’ve got a housekeeper. I’m legally obliged to grant my housekeeper a minimum of 4 weeks of paid vacations. Now, since my housekeeper works on an hourly basis because she only comes once a week rather than every day, giving her paid vacations doesn’t make much sense. The government has taken this into account, though. Instead of actually granting my housekeeper paid vacations, I’m obliged to pay her additional salary.

3. We have to things for benefits : national laws and collective agreements.

   National laws will give the minimum you can get, so for example 5 weeks of paid time off is mandatory for everyone.

   Collective agreement give the minimum required depending on the company field. Some are basically “just follow the law” and will not really give benefits. Some will add a lot more, with additional days off, bonuses, etc.

   For example my company changed it’s activity in the previous years, so we switched to another collective agreement and I now get a small bonus. And if I’m sick they have to give an additional indemnity to supplement the one from social security. With the previous agreement I wouldn’t have had this.

   Then there is whatever the company itself decide : law says they have to give employees complementary health insurance (our system is a mix of public/private), but it doesn’t say how good it has to be. And it’s not a matter of size for things like that, you can have a shitty one in a big company and a great one in a small company.

4. I work for a company that has 4 employees plus the two owners who also work here. So 6 in total. We all get everything somebody in a large corporation would get, otherwise it’d be kinda unfair, right? Even if it wasn’t my employer’s legal obligation to give me paid vacation and shit, they’d probably have to do so anyways to attract employees. Long time employees for sure. I mean, I’d go somewhere else where all that was offered immediately.