Bosses Weigh One More Day of Worker Independence

By Molly Selvin

June 30, 2006 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Independence Day falls on Tuesday this year, creating a dilemma for some local employers: What to do about Monday?

Officially, Monday is a normal business day. Federal offices will be open as will almost all U.S. financial markets and most grocery stores, banks and other commercial establishments.

Unofficially, it’s a phantom holiday, like the day after Thanksgiving, dragging in the halfhearted, the workaholics and those who put in their vacation requests too late.

Some local business owners, particularly those who don’t serve retail customers, are on the fence about whether to close and give their employees the morale boost of an extra day off.

“A number of employers want to know what everyone else is doing,” said Kim Parker, executive director of the California Assn. of Employers, which lobbies on behalf of state business owners.

Nearly three-quarters of the business owners who responded to the group’s survey released this week said they would be open Monday.

Fourteen percent said they would give workers a paid day off.

“We were looking forward to being closed on Monday,” said Lonnie Kane, president of Karen Kane Inc., a Los Angeles-based women’s clothing design firm. “How often do you get to give a four-day weekend?

“But it changed on me Tuesday morning,” he said. “Now, we’re expecting shipments Monday. U.S. Customs is open, so we need to process them.”

Still, he and two other managers will man the grill today at the company’s annual Fourth of July barbecue.

Federal holidays such as Independence Day apply only to federal employees, and although 81% of California bosses said they would give their workers a paid day off July 4, they are not required to do so for any holiday.

As a result, Americans have so few holidays and vacation days that they labor nearly nine weeks longer per year on average than their Western European peers, said Lynn Anderson, who teaches leisure studies at the State University of New York in Cortland.

Workers and their bosses are paying a “high cost in health and well-being” for their treadmill schedules, she said, adding that July 3 is a perfect day for employers to close shop “since it’s sandwiched between a weekend and a holiday.”

But not according to Ilse Metchek, who heads the California Fashion Assn., representing local apparel manufacturers.

“If I were an employee,” she said, “I’d want Wednesday off since those Fourth of July parties sometimes last late into the night.”