美联社

档案——在这张2021年6月17日的档案照片中，乔·拜登总统向李金浔特区众议员递了一支笔

纽约——6月18日被宣布为联邦假日，这给更多的美国公司施加了压力，要求他们给员工放假一天，这加速了去年为应对席卷全国的种族公正抗议而发起的运动。

在警察杀害乔治·弗洛伊德以及随之而来的国家对种族主义的清算之后，数百家顶级公司已经承诺在去年庆祝6月10日。

但是大多数私营公司在制定他们的假日日历时会从联邦政府——这个国家最大的雇主——那里得到启示。在两党国会法案通过后，乔·拜登总统周四签署了一项立法，将6月8日定为联邦假日，纪念奴隶制的结束。

旧金山湾区的一群黑人创意专业人士HellaCreative表示，800多家公司已公开承诺庆祝6月19日，该组织去年发起了一场运动，争取企业支持将6月19日定为法定假日。这几乎是去年加入该承诺的公司数量的两倍。

户外服装零售商巴塔哥尼亚宣布，其所有美国商店将于周六关闭，其公司办公室将于周一关闭。其他品牌，包括塔吉特百货、J.C. Penney和百思买，去年承诺将6月10日作为带薪假期，但他们仍在继续营业。几家大银行表示，员工将获得浮动的带薪休假。

然而，许多公司几乎没有时间调整他们的假日日历。一些公司给员工提供固定的带薪休假，或者承诺明年考虑把它加入到他们的日历中。

纳斯达克表示，其美国交易所将在周五和周一保持开放，“以维持公平有序的市场，并将运营风险降至最低”，但它将与监管机构和公司讨论未来的假期安排。

尚未宣布6月10日为假日的州政府也在争先恐后地应对新的联邦假日。伊利诺伊州州长J.B. Pritzker宣布，所有州政府办公室将于周五关闭，取代了两天前签署的一项州法律，该法律将6月19日定为明年的州假日。

尽管像感恩节这样的联邦假日被广泛遵守，但私营公司没有义务提供任何特定的假日。但研究公司高德纳人力资源实践的主管卡罗琳娜·巴伦西亚(Carolina Valencia)说，由于许多员工不知道这一点，他们可能会想为什么今年6月份没有带薪假期。

巴伦西亚表示，在一个员工积极性日益高涨、人才竞争激烈的时代，她预计在雇主有更多时间做出反应后，明年提供6月10日培训的公司数量将激增。

巴伦西亚说:“许多员工会怨恨雇主不给他们假期，因为他们不明白这是一个复杂的过程。”。

但她说细节里会有魔鬼。许多公司可能会把它作为一个浮动的休息日，使得6月10日不太可能很快成为与7月4日或阵亡将士纪念日同等的全国性节日。

许多知名公司没有加入这场运动。沃尔玛雇佣了30万名黑人小时工，是该国最大的私营部门雇主。沃尔玛在一封电子邮件中告诉美联社，其员工可以自由利用带薪休假来度过他们想要的任何假期，包括6月18日。

零售公司的社交媒体专家拉希姆·汤普森(Raheem Thompson)表示，他对自己没有获得带薪休假感到失望。相反，他说该公司发送了一封电子邮件，承认联邦假日，并承诺考虑在未来休假。

“这是最低限度的，”汤普森说，他住在亚特兰大，但由于担心反响，不想让他的公司被点名。“我不认为作为有色人种，我们真的在乎你通过电子邮件承认这一点...这并没有真正的意义。”

6月19日是为了纪念1865年6月19日，在邦联投降两个月后，联邦士兵将自由的消息带给德克萨斯州加尔维斯顿被奴役的黑人。那也是在《解放宣言》解放南方各州的奴隶后大约两年半。

美国黑人，尤其是德克萨斯州的黑人，长期以来一直以教堂野餐和演讲来庆祝六月十日。但是联邦假日声明第一次引起了一些美国人的注意。

费城一家小健身公司的创始人杰米·希基(Jamie Hickey)说，直到上周他在广播中听到这个消息，他才听说过六月。然后，他的四个教练开始在午餐时谈论这件事，他问他们这对他们是否重要。他决定明年休假一天，因为今年取消客户已经太晚了。

“他们说，‘你是认真的，你刚才听到这个吗?’希克说，他和他的其他教练工作的连锁健身公司因流感大流行而关闭后，他于去年创建了Truism健身公司。

希基说，他从员工中脱颖而出，因为作为一名白人，他担心自己跳进潮流只会被指责为象征性的。

“我不想造假。希基说:“如果你是假的，你会被抓住，而且情况会糟糕一百万倍。

伊克尔战略公司的首席执行官艾琳·伊芙说，即使是最大的员工也非常担心这一点。伊克尔战略公司为公司提供将企业与社区联系起来的建议。伊芙说，如果公司采取像观察六月一样的措施，而不投资黑人社区或考虑他们自己的内部多样性，他们的员工、客户甚至投资者都会打电话给公司。

不过，伊芙说，将6月10日宣布为联邦假日将使不效仿的公司越来越难看。

“对于现在的员工来说，这将重申他们的价值观不一致，”伊芙说。

Federal holiday pressures companies to give Juneteenth off

NEW YORK -- The declaration of Juneteenth as a federal holiday is putting the pressure on more U.S. companies to give their employees the day off, accelerating a movement that took off last year in response to the racial justice protests that swept the country.

Hundreds of top companies had already pledged last year to observe Juneteenth in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd and the national reckoning on racism that followed.

But most private companies take their cues from the federal government — the country's largest employer — in drawing up their holiday calendars. President Joe Biden signed legislation Thursday establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery, following the passage of a bipartisan Congressional bill.

More than 800 companies have publicly pledged to observe Juneteenth, according to HellaCreative, a group of Black creative professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area that launched a campaign last year to build corporate support for making the June 19th an official holiday. That is nearly double the number of companies that had joined the pledge last year.

Patagonia, the outdoor apparel retailer, announced that all of its U.S. stores will be closed Saturday, and its corporate offices would be closed Monday. Other brands, including Target, J.C. Penney and Best Buy had pledged last year to adopt Juneteenth as a paid holiday, though they are keeping stores open. Several major banks have said employees will get a floating paid day off.

Many companies, however, had little time to shuffle their holiday calendars. Some offered employees a regular paid day off or promised to consider adding it to their calendars next year.

Nasdaq said its U.S. exchange would stay open Friday and Monday “to maintain a fair and orderly market and to minimize operational risks” but that it would discuss its future holiday schedule with regulators and companies.

State governments that had not already declared Juneteenth a holiday were also scrambling to respond the new federal holiday. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced that all state government offices will be closed Friday, superseding a state law signed just two days earlier that would have made June 19 a state holiday next year.

Even though federal holidays like Thanksgiving are widely observed, private companies are under no obligation to offer any particular day off. But since many workers don't know that, they will likely wonder why they are not getting a paid holiday for Juneteenth this year, said Carolina Valencia, a director in research firm Gartner’s human resource practice.

In an era of increasing employee activism and a fierce competition for talent, Valencia said she expects the number of companies offering Juneteenth to surge next year after employers have had more time to react.

“Many employees are going to resent their employers for not giving them the holiday because they don't understand that it's a complicated process,” Valencia said.

But she said the devil will be in the details. Many companies will likely offer it as a floating day off, making it unlikely that Juneteenth will become a national holiday on par with July 4th or Memorial Day anytime soon.

And many notable companies have not joined the movement. Walmart, which employs 300,000 Black hourly workers and is the country’s largest private sector employer, told The Associated Press in an email that its employees are free to use paid time off to observe any holiday they wish, including Juneteenth.

Raheem Thompson, a social media specialist for a retail company, said he was disappointed he didn't get a paid day off. Instead, he said the company sent an email acknowledging the federal holiday and pledging to consider time off in the future.

“It’s kind of bare minimum," said Thompson, who lives in Atlanta but didn't want his company named for fear of repercussions. “I don’t think as people of color, we really care that you acknowledge it via email ... that doesn’t really have any true meaning to it."

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas — two months after the Confederacy had surrendered. That was also about 2 1/2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the Southern states.

Black Americans, especially in Texas, have long celebrated Juneteenth with church picnics and speeches. But the federal holiday declaration brought it to the attention of some Americans for the first time.

Jamie Hickey, founder small fitness company in Philadelphia, said he had never heard of Juneteenth until he heard about it last week on the radio. Then, his four trainers started talking about it at lunch, and he asked them if it was important to them. He decided to make it a day off next year since it was too late to cancel on clients this year.

“They said, ‘are you serious, you are just now hearing about this?’" said Hickey, who founded Truism Fitness last year after the chain fitness company where he and he other trainers worked closed because of the pandemic.

Hickey said he took the lead from his employees because, as a white man, he worried about jumping into trends only to be accused of tokenism.

“I don’t want to fake. If you are fake, you get caught and it’s a million times worse," Hickey said.

That's a major concern among even the biggest employees, said Erin Eve, CEO of Ichor Strategies, which advises firm on connecting businesses with their communities. Eve said companies will get called out by their employees, customers and even investors if they take steps like observing Juneteenth without investing in Black communities or looking at their own internal diversity.

Still, Eve said the declaration of Juneteenth as a federal holiday will make companies that don't follow suit increasingly look bad.

“For current employees, it will reaffirm a dissonance with their values," Eve said.