Comparisons to Europeans are not apples-to-apples; many workers in Europe are basically given job protections that only unionized workers in the US get (so using your vacation is much easier). Countries there have outlawed overtime and the use of temps, and it really doesn’t work well for job seekers - unemployment is high, especially for young people.
Western Europeans have a longer history of 1%ers screwing little people (that is why they’ve had much more political violence than us - our government took steps to head that off, though McKinley was killed by an anarchist). The governments are set up to remove all risk from peoples’ lives, and they receive a corresponding low-risk return (for many years, the difference in opportunity/mobility between Europe and the US was stark, though that is disappearing now as WE become more socialist/nanny-state). Americans would enjoy more benefits if we were all tenured teachers, but we aren’t.
You inadvertently stressed my point with the phrase:
many workers in Europe are basically given job protections that only unionized workers in the US get (so using your vacation is much easier)
Vacations and vacation time are mandated by law, yet employers can punish you for using yours?
THAT IS THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM