Humanity in the workplace, whatever happened to that movement?

I have learned lots in my travels, but one is how backwards America truly is, this is most noticeable in a popular saying in other countries "We work to live, Americans live to work" that alone should say something. Not only do we live to work, we want to do it as hard as we can.
One thing they do right in other western countries is have ample vacation time, less overtime and the one I absolutely love, they actually allow their checkers to sit on the job, yup thats right, but you remember that dont you? You remember going into a parts store and there were not only seats on the customer end at the counter, but the parts guy had one as well, but now?
Well those seats are gone, to go along with the modern slaver mentality of America. Apparently as the Manager of safeway told me when I mentioned other countries have stools for their workers "That is just lazy" she would tell me.
"Is that so, looks like you are a little hunched over and having a hard time getting around" I replied, "maybe if you had a chair and could give your feet and in turn your back a rest you would be a bit better off" She just gave me a stern look, which quickly turned to sadness as she realized I was probably right.
So why is it we need to have this American toughness of more work, more cruelty to the worker itself?
Where exactly does this idiotic notion of working harder come into play anyhow?
A good friend of mine who is retired, and disabled said "I do not want to know the guy that never missed a day of work, I want to know the guy who only worked one day and figured out how to never work again"
That has always stuck with me, and I only wish I had heard it when I was a child, rather than already having prided myself with not missing work days and always busting my ass.
I used to look down on the Greeks who wanted to retire at 55, but now my body busted up from a lifetime of blue collar work, I see the wisdom of their ways. Hell I loved Greece and their relaxed way of living, just coming and going and taking their time in life.
Hell that is something I love in my wifes village, where she was always relaxing under the Mangrove tree, where exactly is your Mangrove Tree, do you have one? Now I realize the person reading this is saying "well yea, I am on the couch relaxing" but you are not, the TV is on and the computer, your mind is busy trying to keep up with what is going on, where is your down time? That is what happens under a Mangrove tree, total relaxation.
Some realized we needed that, President Hoover was the first president to state Americans needed a 30 hour work week. Really nothing came of that until Henry Ford came along with his 40 hour work week proclaiming "The common man should have time at home" but that is no more.
My cousin, who hopefully is reading this is talking about going right to work after having her baby, meanwhile in Europe mothers get months of maternity leave to spend with their children. Which do you think is more healthy? Clearly the EUropean approach, and incidentally did you know that most of Europe shuts down in August? Even your Burger flipper will end up with a Month off at some point, and in America we look forward to a jolly good week off, if you are lucky you might get two weeks vacation!.
But if you work a low paying minimum wage job, you can just say fuck Disneyland cause there is no vacation time at all.
That has to end, we spend most of our time at work, most people hate their jobs, and we wonder why heart attacks, strokes, and cancer are all on the rise. Our bodies need that Mangrove tree, we desperately need that down time, and more time to spend with our families. But we are not getting them until we retire, and then it is simply to late, all those good moments with your family are now gone and you are to damned old and crippled up to enjoy life fully.
And this brings us full circle to needing to get back to our roots. Somewhere along the way I read a study which stated in prehistoric times man would only work about 15 percent of his life to surive, now we work 80 percent.
At some point we decided we were better off to not simply Fish fuck and eat, but what exactly is better than those three things?
Not much in all honesty.