Mohammed Ziyan Aslam

Mr. Mangini

ENG 112

30 Nov, 2017

Paid and maternity leave affects on America

As we saw in the movie Where to Invade Next, directed by Michael Moore, the

Italian people were given the thirteenth salary and paid vacation to relieve their stress

and to enjoy their life. What would happen if this tradition was brought and implemented

in America? Would it be helpful? Would it benefit the citizens of America to improve the

life expectancy of people? Similarly, in Germany workers in a pencil factory were given

2 hours for lunch each day and, they were allowed to work for only 36 hours per week

maximum. Eventually, Moore planted his American flag and brought this system to

America, where workers dont have the capability of taking a paid leave. The employees

in America should be provided with paid vacations in order to improve the productivity of

the workers, loyalty of the employees and to keep the families and societies

economically self-sufficient. Therefore, America should provide paid leave and maternity

leaves in order to have better results from the workers.

Firstly, paid leaves improves the productivity of the employees. In addition, by

providing such holidays to the employee, it releases pressure off their shoulders and

makes them less stressful. As a result, this directly affects the productivity of the worker.

In order to prove the sentence right National Partnership organisation did an

examination by giving their own workers paid leaves. According to the analysis done
by National Partnership organisation, they found out that around ninety percent

of businesses observation about the effects of the paid leave program in

California, the program had a positive effect on productivity. (National Partnership

pg.2). In contrast, the wonderful analysis done by National Partnership organisation

shows clearly that when the workers were offered to take holiday with a guarantee that

they will be paid for that day, employees returned back to work much happier and less

stressful which resulted in better production of the company. Similarly, when Google

started giving maternity leaves, they found a drastic change in the behaviour of every

single worker who took it. When Google expanded its maternity leave program, the

company found that women who took the new leave were "more productive and

happier" when they came back to work.(Strassenr pg.4). This evidence shows that

these leaves in which the worker was paid resulted in raising the productivity of the

company as employees return from leave much more happier. Therefore, paid leaves

increases the efficiency of the workers.

Secondly, providing paid allowance increases the loyalty of the workers.

However, enabling employees to take some time off during the work or after the work

can make them more beneficial belongings when they return back to their job. For

instance, In the movie Where to Invade next the workers in Germany, workers of the

pencil factory, were allotted two hours of lunchtime in which they can get back to home

prepare lunch and eat it peacefully. In one of the review it was found out that major

business which was giving paid leaves increased the loyalty of the workers:

According to Harvard Business Review, a majority of the most successful

companies report that exemplary benefit programs strengthen employee loyalty

and morale(National Partnership pg.2). This statement proves that there was a severe

change in the faithfulness of the employees after they had completed their leave. Thus,

giving more leaves with extra money would result in better behaviour of the whole

company. Correspondingly, another observation was made by the employers of New

Jersey: New Jersey employers noted that the states paid leave program helped

reduce stress among employees and improve morale among employees who took

leave and their co-workers (National Partnership pg.2). This quote shows that the co-

workers who took their leave were observed raise in their morale as they returned back

to work. Hence, paid leaves beautifies the behaviour of the employees.

Lastly, granting compensated leave keeps the family and society economically

self-sufficient. According to the reports by a joint committee done by United States

Congress found that: A Joint Economic Committee report by the United States

Congress found that women who return to work after taking maternity leave are

40 percent less likely to receive public assistance in the year after giving birth,

compared to women who continue to work without taking leave.(Strassenr pg.3).

This reveals a truth that these leaves in which workers are paid have a great impact on

their lives, especially women when she is going through the process of giving birth, it

gets too complicated to handle so many aspects all together. On the other hand,

according to the survey conducted by the International Labor Organization showed that:

Out of 185 countries and territories in the world surveyed by the International

Labor Organization, the United States is one of only two countries to offer no paid
maternity leave(National Partnership pg.2). This needs to have some improvement as

we can see that United states is one the countries in which the paid leaves aren't

offered. On a single night in January 2013, there were 610,042 people

experiencing homelessness. Homelessness has declined by 9% since

2007(Admin pg.13). These aspects affects the whole society, once these leaves are

offered then it might decrease the number of homeless people and those who are

surviving on very low income. Similarly, in another observation done by National

Partnership organization Among all developed economies, the United States is the

only country that does not guarantee paid maternity leave. 13 Other countries

have recognized that providing leave is a matter of economic competitiveness

and, in fact, the most competitive countries in the world offer paid leave to

workers(National Partnership pg.2). All these statements shows that America good

and self sufficient, but not upto that level where every single person feel satisfied with

how much they work and how much they earn.

In conclusion, providing paid leave and vacation would not only help Americans

but it will also help other smaller businesses and it might improve the efficiency of the

workers, faithfulness of the employees and to keep the families and society

economically stable. As a result of paid holidays and vacation the life expectancy of

other countries is much higher than America because they have identified the values of

the workers.
 Works Cited

Admin. Global Homelessness Statistics. Homeless World Cup, Homeless World Cup, 11 Aug.

2017, homelessworldcup.org/homelessness-statistics/. "Statistics of different countries

and their homeless people population"

Enzi, Michael B. "Forcing Businesses to Offer Paid Sick Leave Is Not an Answer to H1N1."

H1N1 Flu, edited by Noah Berlatsky, Greenhaven Press, 2010. At Issue. Opposing

Viewpoints in Context,

libdb.dccc.edu/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010716215/OVIC?u=pa

_de_ccc&xid=61a64c2e. Accessed 21 Nov. 2017. Originally published as "The Cost of

Being Sick: H1N1 and Paid Sick Days," 2009.

Hayes, Nick. "Did manual workers want industrial welfare? Canteens, latrines and masculinity

on British building sites 1918-1970." Journal of Social History, vol. 35, no. 3, 2002, p.

637+. Opposing Viewpoints in

Context,libdb.dccc.edu/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A84678615/OVIC?

u=pa_de_ccc&xid=29cc114b. Accessed 21 Nov. 2017.

Linn, Allison. No Paid Time Off? Welcome to 'No-Vacation Nation'. CNBC, CNBC, 28 May

2013, www.cnbc.com/id/100769597.

Allison Linn also mentioned about the senior economist John Schmitt, with CEPR and

one of the authors of the report, spoke about this matter saying that even if the workers

were provided paid leave here in America people wont leave their job for that time and

enjoy the holiday because of their circumstances of job insecurity.

Mazie, Steven. Why Do Americans Have Less Vacation Time than Anyone Else? Big Think,

Big Think , 23 Dec. 2012,

bigthink.com/praxis/why-do-americans-have-less-vacation-than-anyone-else.

"In this website Steve Mazie raises a an issue saying that In United States zero paid

holidays are given as compared to other countries such as Australia has at least 4 weeks

off, plus 10 public holidays, Brazil has 22 days of paid leave with a 33 percent salary

vacation bonus and the France has at least 5 weeks off and as many as 9 for many public

employees. Looking at this analysis we can see how far United states is from other

countries, the author calls it as big fat goose egg."

Moore, Michael . Where To Invade Next. Where To invade next , Michael Moore IMDb,

IMDb.com, 25 Feb. 2016, www.imdb.com/title/tt4897822/.

 This documentary type movie gives us a brief idea about how Michael Moore went to

different nations and countries such as Italy, France, Finland, Tunisia, Slovenia,

Germany, and Portugal in order to learn what US can adopt from these countries and

make a better place. This movie was published in 2015, who's director and producer was

Michael Moore himself. One of the country he visited was Italy where he found out that

citizens are paid 13th salary and have a paid holiday which keeps them away from stress

and illnesses, increasing their life expectancy.

Paid Family and Medical Leave. Www.NationalPartnership.org., National Partnership, Mar.

2015,

www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/paid-leave/paid-leave-good-

for-business.pdf. "In this website, the organization explained how paid leaves and

medical leaves can increase the productivity of the worker. It also provides data which

proves the results for these leaves."

Strassner, Elizabeth. 8 Reasons We Need To Support Paid Maternity Leave. Bustle, Bustle, 11

Sept. 2017, www.bustle.com/p/8-reasons-we-need-to-support-paid-maternity-leave-57578.

"This website provides reasoning to why paid leaves and maternity leaves should be

given to employees so that they can improve lots of things such as productivity, women

at workplace etc."