L.A. formally makes Juneteenth a holiday for all city workers

The Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to establish Juneteenth as a permanent paid holiday for city employees, a year after then-Mayor Eric Garcetti signed a proclamation creating the holiday.

Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in the United States. The holiday commemorates the events of June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, bringing news of freedom to Black slaves two months after the end of the Civil War and 2½ years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

President Biden signed legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021.

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Garcetti’s 2022 resolution came two years after Councilmembers Curren D. Price and Marqueece Harris-Dawson and former Councilmember Herb J. Wesson introduced a proposal in July 2020 to explore making Juneteenth a city holiday.

The two votes taken by the City Council on Friday deal with the minutiae of holiday rules for an employer with tens of thousands of employees.

One vote will amend Los Angeles Administrative Code to add Juneteenth as a holiday for “non-represented” employees, or those who don’t have union bargaining agreements with the city.

The council also voted to approve contract amendments recognizing Juneteenth as a holiday for those workers for agreements with nearly two dozen unions representing city employees.

“We negotiated it with all of our unions to make the holiday permanent citywide,” City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo said Friday.

The holiday will be observed on June 19 every year, unless June 19 falls on a weekend, in which case it will be observed on Friday or Monday, as specified in the Administrative Code and individual labor agreements.

Employees who work on the holiday “shall be compensated consistent with the provisions of their” memoranda of understanding, according to an email sent to city employees by Dana H. Brown, general manager of the city’s Personnel Department.