More Firms Cooperating in Observing King Day

Last year on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, about 400 employees of Southern California Gas Co. took vacation days for an early morning celebration breakfast in a park across the street from the company’s headquarters in Inglewood. But they weren’t there just to eat pancakes and honor the late civil rights leader.

The employees, for the second year in a row, were trying to “put a little social pressure” on Southern California Gas Co. to make King’s birthday a paid holiday.

They brought along signs and banners and held a news conference. This time it worked.

“The company saw the handwriting on the wall and later during contract talks we successfully negotiated the holiday into our benefits,” said Ernesto Vega, business manager for Utilities Workers Union of America.

An extra day was not added to the holiday list. Instead, the day replaced one of the three personal business or floating days that workers are entitled to and had used at their own discretion. Now, everybody is off on King’s birthday.

Compromise Measure

“It was a compromise. We could not afford to add another holiday to the schedule. But the workers felt strongly about honoring Dr. King, so they traded one of their personal business days for it,” said company spokeswoman Leslie Forbes.

The incident illustrated how employer and employee attitudes have changed since civil rights activists struggled to make King’s birthday a national holiday. The company, while not willing to add a day off, had no qualms about honoring King by setting aside a floating day in his name. And while support for the holiday once came mostly from black workers, backing at the gas company came from all other employees as well.

“It was the principle of it all,” Vega said. “We felt that we as a public company should respect a national holiday, especially one for such a great man as King was.”

Dr. Mark Ridley-Thomas, who heads the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles, said: “The number of complaints we have received about not getting the day off have subsided dramatically. I think the idea of honoring the birth of Dr. King is established. (But) there’s a lot more work to be done. We take the holiday to signal that the dream lives on and our commitment is undaunted. Now the issue is to get the government to take seriously the principles by which Dr. King lived and fought.”

Complaints Stopped Coming

“We just don’t have complaints about Martin Luther King Day like we used to,” said Theodore M. Shaw, co-director of the Western regional office of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Almost all federal, state, county and city government offices, including schools, courts, post offices and banks, will be closed Monday.

The holiday is held the third Monday in January. King was actually born on Jan. 15 and would have been 60 this year. He was killed by a sniper’s bullet on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn., where he had gone to lead a demonstration of striking garbage workers.

Many private companies, like the gas company, have proclaimed the day a company holiday. Others have declined to do so, merely telling their employees to use one of their personal holidays or vacation time if they want to observe the event.

One such company is Lockheed Aeronautical Systems of Burbank, with 14,500 employees.

Ross Hopkins, public affairs manager, said: “It has worked out well this way. They have a choice, and while most choose not to use the day for a holiday, they have the opportunity to do so.”

Some workers who otherwise would not take the day off find that they must because their children are out of school and some day-care centers are closed.

Eva McKeown, an account executive with the KSCI Television, must care for her 8-year-old son, Stephen.

“Used to be, the day-care centers stayed open for some holidays such as King. But lately they haven’t been. It puts me in a real bind. I have the problem on other holidays too, like Columbus Day. I don’t get the day as a holiday at work, but we do have personal days, so I have to use them for the holidays whether I want to or not.”

Carolyn Webb de Macias, area vice president of Pacific Bell, finds herself in a similar situation. At her company, the policy is to use a personal day for the holiday. Her three sons are off on Martin Luther King Day. However, since she is president of the Martin Luther King Legacy Assn., she will take the day regardless to help prepare for a dinner being held Monday night at which Rev. Jesse Jackson will be keynote speaker. She is also participating in an anti-apartheid march on the same day.

“I know it’s a hardship to some parents, and with everyone seeming to be in agreement, I would like to see more companies make it an official holiday.”