ANAHEIM : King Holiday to Be Overtime Pay Period
The city’s municipal employees will all receive a paid holiday or overtime pay Monday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday after the City Council this week extended the day off to Police and Utility department employees.
About 545 employees represented by the Anaheim Police Officers Assn. and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers will benefit from Tuesday’s decision.
Extending the holiday to these employees will cost the city $80,000 in overtime pay, mostly to police officers and employees of the Utility Department’s operations unit. In addition, $101,700 in holiday pay will be given to employees who normally would be working.
The rest of the city’s 1,500 employees, including managers and those represented by other unions, already receive the holiday because of previous actions by the council or through their unions’ collective bargaining agreements.
Garry McRae, the city’s labor relations director, said city officials did not think that it was fair to give the holiday to some employees and not to others.
The police and electrical workers unions negotiated their collective bargaining agreements, without the Martin Luther King holiday, before the other unions negotiated the holiday into their contracts, McRae said.
The council also unilaterally extended the holiday to the police and electrical workers last year.
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