John Oliver devoted a segment of the Mothers’ Day edition of “Last Week Tonight” to criticize the United States’ lack of paid family leave for workers.
Oliver began by citing a U.N. report which stated that the U.S. and Papua New Guinea are the only two countries in the world that provide no paid time off for new mothers.
“That’s as unlikely a pairing as Sofia Vergara and Reese Witherspoon,” Oliver said, referencing the critically-panned film “Hot Pursuit.” “Separately, great. But if it’s just the two of them with no one else, it makes you feel like one of them has taken an eye off the ball–Reese.”
Oliver then played clips from an interview with Bloomberg Business reporter Claire Suddath in which she outlined the limits on family leave in the U.S., such as you must work for a company with more than 50 employees, you must have been working there for at least a year, and you get no leave if you are a contractor or part-time.
“So if a worker with no paid leave goes into labor at work, she better hope it’s on her lunch hour,” Oliver said. “And that her coworkers don’t mind if the break room gets a bit messy.”
Oliver went on to say that this is an issue that fathers have to deal with as well. In Major League Baseball, for example, players are given only three days of leave when their child is born. When Mets player Daniel Murphy took the leave, he was lambasted by sports media and told he needed to get back to work.
“Good luck selling that to your wife,” Oliver said. “‘Listen, babe. I know I play 162 games in a season, but I can’t miss a single one so let’s cut that thing out of your belly so I can wear my baggy pajamas and swing a cone of wood to make a ball go far.’”
Oliver pointed out that after the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act in the U.S., few workplaces reported negative effects from the law, which was contrary to conservative opposition to the law.
Oliver ended the segment with a video clip that celebrated mothers for all they have done for us. “And this Mothers’ Day, we have just one thing to say to all the mothers out there,” the narrator said. “Get the f— back to work!”
Watch the video above.
