North Dakota Republican complains about Juneteenth paid holiday plan: 'We're having more days off for whatever'

A Republican state senator in North Dakota this week complained that American workers have too many days off during a discussion about making Juneteenth a paid holiday.

A video posted by Heartland Signal shows North Dakota State Sen. Jeff Barta arguing that Americans don't need anymore days off during the year, and he said he's already annoyed that so many people get the day after Thanksgiving off.

"I look at this from the perspective of a small business owner, my frustration was always the day after Thanksgiving," he said.

He then turned to the current proposal to make Juneteenth a paid holiday.

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"It just seems like... we're having more and more days off for whatever," he said. "And how people choose to take advantage of those days and which days they take off, I would like to leave that to the individual and their individual employer to determine what it's going to be. So strictly from a commerce standpoint I'm not a fan of adding more non-working days to the calendar."

The United States Congress in 2021 voted to officially recognize Juneteenth, which celebrates the end of slavery in the United States, as a federal holiday.

What's more, a 2020 study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that workers in the United States get less paid time off than workers in every other developed nation, and that all of those days off are in the form of federal holidays.

Watch the video below or at this link.

\u201cND State Sen. Jeff Barta (R), speaking on a bill to make Juneteenth a paid holiday, complains workers have the day after Thanksgiving off: "As a small business... my frustration was always the day after Thanksgiving... Seems like we're having more and more days off for whatever."\u201d

— Heartland Signal (@Heartland Signal) 1674166592