The King holiday still is not for every worker

The birthday of the slain civil rights leader remains freighted with political and economic calculations.

By SCOTT BARANCIK, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 17, 2003

TAMPA -- To anyone who hasn't attended the annual Martin Luther King Jr. leadership breakfast in Tampa, the 6:45 a.m. start time shown on the ticket stub may seem ridiculously early.

But it's no typo. Many of those attending Monday's event at the Hyatt Regency Tampa will need to scoot to work right afterward.

Twenty years after officials in Washington declared the slain civil rights leader's birthday a federal holiday, and just weeks after ousted Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott unconvincingly apologized for his vote against it, the vast majority of business owners still don't give their workers the day off with pay.

St. Petersburg computer equipment manufacturer Jabil Circuit doesn't. Neither does Tampa Electric Co., Eckerd Drug or Publix. Though banks tend to be an exception to the rule, BankAtlantic of Fort Lauderdale is paying its branch employees double their normal wage to work on King's birthday and prove the company is more customer friendly.

"The needs of the restaurant come first," Outback Steakhouse diversity director Joseph Jackson said. Employees at the Tampa company's home office will get Monday off, but restaurant staff will work at normal pay. "Guests expect us to be there, fully staffed, and we have to respect that."

Though still outnumbered, a growing group of public and private employers in the United States are observing the King holiday. Thirty percent are expected to give employees a paid day off this year, more than double the 14 percent rate in 1986, according to a survey by publisher BNA Inc. The New York Stock Exchange will close Jan. 20. So will all offices of Florida law firm Holland & Knight.

The proportion of employers celebrating King's birthday may even have edged ahead of Veteran's Day and Columbus Day, BNA survey director Mike Reidy said.

Observance rates differ substantially depending on the type of employer in question, however. While most government employees get the day off by law, only 5 percent of manufacturing firms, 12 percent of health care organizations and 15 percent of retailers and wholesalers planned to offer their workers a paid holiday this year. Organizations with more than 1,000 employees or unionized labor were more likely to observe King's birthday than their counterparts.

Employers who don't plan to give workers the day off offer a spirited defense.

Some, including Jabil, Tampa Electric and the St. Petersburg Times, said they give employees "flex" days that can be used to care for a sick child, attend a ball game or celebrate an unobserved holiday like King's birthday. Many said they would like to honor King but can't afford to let employees take all 10 federal holidays off.

"I would love to see individual and private corporations honor it," St. Petersburg NAACP president Daryl Rouson said, "but I think those are economic decisions that businesses make that have nothing to do with race."

Rouson is a good example of the challenge employers face on holidays. Though employees at his law firm, Rouson & Dudley, will get King's birthday off with pay, Rouson and others will take turns checking for messages and returning calls. "We're a small firm, so we have to try to be more accountable, accessible and available than maybe some larger firms do," he said.

Come October, however, Rouson's law firm won't be celebrating Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus "because of our sensitivity to the Native Americans."

Efforts to establish a federal holiday honoring King, who was born Jan. 15, 1929, and assassinated in 1968, began in the 1970s. Despite opposition from lawmakers such as Sen. Lott, a Mississippi Republican, a law creating the holiday passed in 1983, and the first official celebration took place in 1986. After rancorous fights, Florida lawmakers also approved the King holiday in 1988.

Today, efforts to honor King remain controversial. Sixteen years after the St. Petersburg City Council added his name to signs on Ninth Street, local lawmakers and citizens are once again debating whether to eliminate the numeric designation altogether.

Business owners also continue to debate the merits of making the third Monday in January -- the day on which King's birthday is observed -- a paid holiday.

Clark Jordan-Holmes, managing partner of the Stewart Joyner & Jordan-Holmes law firm in Tampa, said even businesses that have few or no African-American staff members should take the day off. Jordan-Holmes is white, while the firm's two other named partners are black.

"I think what Martin Luther King said, he spoke to all of us," he said. "If America wants to continue to be the world power that we are right now, we need to respect diversity."

Most employers pick and choose between holidays.

Tampa Electric, which has about 2,500 employees, doesn't observe Veteran's Day, Washington's Birthday (often combined with Abraham Lincoln's and called Presidents' Day) or Columbus Day. It does, however, give workers the day off on Good Friday, and many years ago, it even gave them a paid holiday to celebrate Gasparilla.

Holland and Knight skips Columbus Day and Veteran's Day, but its offices are allowed to observe local tradition, such as the Battle of Flowers Parade in San Antonio, Texas, or Patriot's Day in Boston, human resources director Andy Petterson said.

Many of these and other employers use "flex" days to give workers the freedom to pick their own holidays. In an era of growing religious, ethnic and racial diversity, doing so provides not only flexibility but a safe escape from complaints of discrimination or favoritism.

Even in government there are a few holdouts, however.

City Hall in North Redington Beach, for example, a Pinellas County beach community with about 1,500 residents, will be open Monday.

"We have a set number of days that are allowed per year for holidays and so forth," Mayor Harold Radcliff said. "We didn't feel it was appropriate to add another day."

-- Times staff writers Jeff Harrington and Lou Hau and researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8751.

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