You are looking at the calendar and see that Christmas falls on a Thursday, and were wondering why you even need to come to work that Friday. In all likelihood no one is going to be there. Well, there are tens of thousands of feds who are already asking that question via a petition on the White House’s “We the People” website.
The petition asking President Obama to use his executive authority to give feds Dec. 26th off has hit more than 87,000 signatures, but the petition needs 100,000 signatures to get a response from the administration.
So if you want to make your case for that day off, then you should probably sign it. If you don’t care, then feel free to breeze by this blog post worry free.
But getting that Friday off would have the added benefit of giving feds a four-day weekend, which the petition states would be a nice way to thank feds after years of pay freezes and furloughs.
“Giving federal employees an extra holiday on Dec. 26th, 2014 would be a good gesture to improve morale of the federal workforce,” the petition says. Some military bases will be closed that day anyway, forcing some feds to use vacation time, according to the petition.
The petition also cites precedent, with Obama having granted feds Dec. 24, 2012 as a holiday and a half-day off Dec. 24, 2009. President George W. Bush also provided feds with several days off through executive orders.
5 Comments
Please sign the petition. Today is the last day!!! We need 5,000 more signatures!!!
4048 more needed as of 3:30pm EST
would love to have the day off!!!
it failed to meet the signature threshold.
We have never had to petition in the past and every president who was in term when Christmas fell on a thursday has given us December 26th off. Don’t worry about it.