On Oct. 24, American employees will have worked an entire year-that is, if they worked anywhere but the United States.

As crazy as it sounds, on Oct. 24 American workers will have put in as many hours on the job as their European counterparts do all year-but we Yanks still have another two-and-a-half months left on the clock.

If you feel overworked, you're certainly not alone. In fact, according to the The Wall Street Journal, we Americans are working 20% more nowadays than we did back in the 1970s-this, while work hours have declined in other industrialized nations. We also vacation less than the rest of the industrial world: workers in Germany-no slouch on the GDP front-get 24 paid vacation days, and up to 13 other holidays, each year. The Japanese, renown for their work ethic, assure workers 18 paid days off. We Americans average 10. Total.

Yes, Germany is in an economic slump right now, and yes, they're thinking of revising the 35-hour workweeks and generous benefits of their citizens. The fact is, they can't remain economically viable on the global market and continue to offer their citizens such "luxuries." Cheap labor countries don't have to worry about pesky things like vacations or pensions or health benefits, so why should Germany...or the U.S.?

Well, for starters...do we really want to be like the cheap labor countries? Take India, for instance, where few public schools have access to drinking water, toilets or, in some cases, even buildings or teachers. Then there's China, with its human rights abuses.

Are these the models we "industrialized" countries want to emulate?

God I hope not.

Which is why I'm intrigued by Take Back Your Time Day, Oct. 24. The folks who champion this day may sound a little (or a lot) crazy to the more conservative of you out there: they want paid family leave; three weeks' minimum vacation for all full-time workers; the right to refuse overtime after 48-hours on the job per week; and they want to make election day a holiday.

Now before you scoff, think about it for just a second: it makes sense, doesn't it? Seems logical that full-time employees would get some paid time off after the birth or adoption of a child (because it's not like babies conveniently arrive during lunch hour). And three weeks' vacation would go a long way to helping parents navigate childcare during school holidays. And if you've ever had to do a few 50+ hour weeks at the behest of your lovely boss....well, you probably would welcome a law that gave you the right to politely decline another round of overtime so that you could watch your daughter play softball.

What I'm getting at here is that, while the demands of the Take Back Your Time folks may seem outlandish, they really aren't in the grand scheme of life, the world and everything. They're just common sense. But we, as a country and as a world, are quickly losing that sense. Many of us are terrified of losing our jobs so we reject anything that could potentially cost our companies more money and perhaps cause them to move our jobs someplace where the people-and the labor costs-aren't so uppity.

But we have to ask ourselves: what will our fear and complacency do to our kids? And I'm not talking in the short term-the kids will get over us missing a softball game here or a football scrimmage there. But will they get over us leaving them a world in which they'll have to work 20% more hours than we're working right now, with even less time off to be with their families?

If this worries you, check out Take Back Your Time Day (www.timeday.org). Because no matter what your political persuasion, two months is a lot of overtime to look forward to!