NEW YORK (AP) — New York City municipal workers are not getting a paid Juneteenth holiday this year. That’s despite a pledge last year from Mayor Bill de Blasio to make it one. Juneteenth, on June 19th, marks the day in 1865 that enslaved Black people in Texas were told by Union soldiers that they had been freed. Last year, de Blasio said it would be “an official city holiday” starting this year. But the city would need to have labor negotiations with the unions representing city workers. As of Thursday, there have been discussions but no negotiations, according to the city. President Joe Biden on Thursday made Juneteenth a federal holiday.
Photo: FILE – In this Friday, June 19, 2020, file photo, demonstrators protest during a Juneteenth rally at the Brooklyn Museum, in the Brooklyn, N.Y. President Joe Biden signed into law Thursday, June 17, 2021, a bill designating Juneteenth—which commemorates June 19, 1865 when enslaved people in Texas learned they had been freed—as the 11th federal holiday. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
