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Citizens of the Republic,
Welcome back – so why should we require employers in our country to provide hardworking Americans with just ten days of paid leave per year?
Why not a hundred? Two hundred? Three hundred? Why not live in a futuristic dystopian society where robots cater to our every whim? As we roll around on motorized scooters, wearing fluffy slippers, sipping from jumbo-sized soft drink cups?
Well, that goes back to our discussion on moderation, doesn’t it? For too much of a good thing, is just as harmful as too little.
So, if we are trying to find balance in a society, like ours, that doesn’t provide for any paid leave. Whatsoever. Why begin with just ten days?
Well, let me suggest five reasons: Poetry. Irony. Symmetry, just deserts, and reasonableness.
So, let me ask you a question: when you entered the workforce as I did. Weren’t you told that giving two weeks of notice to your employer prior to leaving a job, was customary?
Now, fast forward to 2020, and the COVID-19 Pandemic. How many of you were given two weeks’ notice, by your employers, before they let you go?
Turning to legislation, and please see my legal disclaimer below, in 2020 Congress passed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which temporarily provided up to two weeks of paid leave for workers who were sick or quarantined due to COVID-19.
Now, I am not disputing that this was not a good thing. If you are sick. You shouldn’t work –
But I do have to ask – why only COVID? Why not the flu? Or breaking your leg? Why not mental health? Why not cancer?
Why just this – one specific ailment? And no other. Surely, the other maladies I mentioned warrant two weeks.
Finally, while I know the idea of a forty-hour workweek is a bit of a novelty for many of us.
In fact, I am quite sure that most of us think we have a higher chance of finding a pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow than getting a forty-hour workweek.
If you calculate a 40-hour workweek by 52 weeks in a year – that gives us 2080 hours.
So, if we are asking for just two weeks – all we are really asking for is 80 hours off the backend of a 40-hour workweek. That’s reasonable. Isn’t it?
In fact, I would warrant that most of the rest of the world – watching this video – would think that 71% of Americans, asking for just ten days of paid leave from their employers, is not just reasonable – it’s more than reasonable.
For if our sister democracies, in Europe, and Australia, can guarantee their people 20 days of paid leave per year, how it is objectively unreasonable for hard-working Americans to ask for just two weeks, in 2022?
After all, we are only asking for a minimum baseline standard.
So, if you believe, as I do, that this policy matter needs to be raised in our public discourse, please like, subscribe, ring that notification bell, share with your friends – and stay tuned, for more videos on this subject.
Feel free to tag us here on your social media accounts at hashtag Citizen of the Republic, alongside the hashtag, Just Two Weeks.
Finally, if you are interested in learning more about this problem, please refer to the cited materials below, the first of which has a world map which highlights this issue.
This is James David Miller, relinquishing the stage but not the field.
Be well, be safe, stay strong, and keep the faith America.
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© 2021 James Miller, President & Founder, Citizen of the Republic, LLC. All rights reserved.
