“New Yorkers need a break,” deBlasio said during a City Hall news conference. “It's bad for yourphysical health. It's bad for your mental health. It's no way tolive.” (Photo: Bloomberg)

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed requiring privatebusinesses with five or more employees to give at least 10 days ofpaid vacation a year, a step that would extendthe benefit to about 500,000 full- and part-time workers whocurrently don't have it.

The law would guarantee two weeks paid vacation or personal timeto every employee, including the thousands of airport workers,apartment-building doormen, retail workers and others withoutcompensated days off. It would require approval by the 51-membercity council, where it would have broad support among a Democraticmajority that has already pushed the mayor to budget more than $100million for half-fare discounts to some of the city's poor onsubways and buses.

Related: Where workers are most, least likely to takeadvantage of vacation time

It would apply to the same workers covered by the city's 2014legislation guaranteeing five days of paid sick leave after 120days of employment. Unused personal time could be carried over tothe following year, with workers giving employers at least twoweeks notice. The mayor said the law would be the first of its kindin the U.S. and was needed to help families and to preserve thepublic's health.

“New Yorkers need a break,” de Blasio said during a City Hallnews conference Wednesday. “It's bad for your physical health. It'sbad for your mental health. It's no way to live.”

The mayor's proposal amounts to “another example of municipaloverreach into the city's private sector,” said Kathryn Wylde,president of the Partnership for New York City, a civic associationof corporate chief executives. “More than a third of the businessesthat would be most threatened by this new mandate are owned byimmigrants, a group that the mayor champions. Many are strugglingretailers, who are facing rising rents and online competition.”

De Blasio said the city's law would be similar to those enactedin many of the world's industrialized nations, including the U.K.,France, Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Japan and Italy.

Read more: 

• 10 best companies for vacation and paid timeoff
• 5 big players in any vacation benefitsplan
• A vacation can't undo the damage of a stressfulwork environment

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