Unlike the NFL, where teams can break their end of the deal by releasing a player, in baseball getting released is akin to a paid vacation.

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Their contracts obliged them to stay in Afghanistan for six-month periods, after which they received a month of paid vacation.

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The U.S. is the only industrialized nation in the world that does not legally require workers to be provided a set number of paid vacation days.

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They also receive on average 30 paid vacation days a year -- the most in Europe.

CNN: Take your vacation, or die?

In February international publicity forced a hotel, the Mangrove Tree Resort World in Hainan, a southern vacation island, to close a casino bar for guests that paid out winnings in tokens that could be redeemed for hotel rooms and spent in resort shops.

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But employers in the United States are not obligated under federal law to offer any paid vacation, so about a quarter of all American workers don't have access to it, government figures show.

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Germany is among more than two dozen industrialized countries -- from Australia to Slovenia to Japan -- that require employers to offer four weeks or more of paid vacation to their workers, according to a 2009 study by the human resources consulting company Mercer.

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Although some individual companies offer a paid maternity leave benefit, many parents end up using a combination of short-term disability, sick leave, vacation, personal days and unpaid family leave.

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