Monday July 5. Off or working?

July 6, 2021 6:32 AM

Argument with a friend who insists "most people" had to work July 5, 2021. It was a federal holiday. "Bank holiday" as the British would say.

It may come down to the "most" part. Certainly, most office workers were off. Seems likely, most retail people worked all weekend. My friend worked in construction, and never had such a day off.

posted by Goofyy to Work & Money (24 answers total)

You've answered this yourself - it depends on the industry. Generally office workers get it off but retail, food, and construction did not. Education workers would and health care types would not unless they work in a clinic that also closed. Libraries were closed in my state as were most other government offices. Union contracts generally require the day after a Federal holiday that falls on a Sunday to be paid as a holiday. For some that means no work but it may just mean a higher pay rate for those that need to be staffed every day.

In certain climates, construction work can only be done during the warmer months and so it is practically a 24/7 schedule until it is too cold.
posted by soelo at 6:48 AM on July 6, 2021 [6 favorites]

Best answer: I've run into these arguments with my wife, who is a nurse, but for surgery that has some ability to schedule around holidays. In general, the "Bank Holidays" (We say that in the USA too) cover 9-12 holiday days throughout the year. Many companies follow them (offices, banks, schools, governments, some retail [but not most!], nonprofits, etc) and Many companies, usually the ones where day-to-day operations matter for the bottom line, or where there is a crucial time schedule, do not. (Healthcare, retail, food, infrastructure, manufacturing etc).

There's never a clear solution. My wife in nursing, gets some bank holidays off and not others, seemingly randomly. (And not due to personnel scheduling, as much as sometimes the surgeons want to take off 4th of July, sometimes they don't). So, we just always have to get clarification.

To answer your question, do MOST people take off bank holidays?

Unlikely. In the USA, I looked up the list of 25 most common jobs. 13/25 I estimate usually work through those holidays.

So, in conclusion, I'd say it's close to half.
posted by bbqturtle at 6:56 AM on July 6, 2021 [5 favorites]

Data point: I am in the U.S. and in the construction industry in Illinois. We had the day off.
posted by Glinn at 6:57 AM on July 6, 2021 [2 favorites]

As someone who's gone from white collar to service industry work, I have to tell you that the assumptions about "how work and holidays work" that come from a very 9-5, flexible atmosphere ("don't most people knock off early on summer Fridays?") can sometimes come across as a very class-laden argument to those who work jobs where the scheduling is much less flexible than some (but not all) office jobs.

So in terms of trying to win the argument, regardless of the numbers, your friend may be asking you to stay more sensitive to certain elements of their work.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:59 AM on July 6, 2021 [42 favorites]

I think in general, when the federal holiday doesn't actually fall on the holiday calendar day, more people tend to have to work on the federal holiday than would have had to work on the actual calendar holiday. Like, next year when July 4th falls on a Monday, more people will get that day off than got July 5th (Independence Day Observed) off this year (this is only an issue with "date" type holidays like Independence Day, Christmas, and New Year's Day, not an issue with holidays that are tied to a day of the week).

And there is of course tons of industry and regional and individual organization variation - several of my family members who are restaurant workers had to work Sunday the 4th and/or Monday the 5th, but also I noticed that many restaurants in the same area were closed on one or both of those days.
posted by mskyle at 7:02 AM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

..."most people" had to work July 5, 2021.

Are you sure this isn't a joke about how "most people" includes everyone worldwide, and only people in the US had the 5th as a holiday, for the rest of the world it was a normal Monday?

I, as an office person, had the 5th off; but I went to WalMart and Lowes and Culver's at 6pm actually on the 4th of July and all were open and busy; on the 5th I needed something from a small town hardware store but called first and confirmed they were open. If your friend meant 'just in the US' then it's a breakdown of who has a nice holiday schedule and who doesn't.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:04 AM on July 6, 2021 [4 favorites]

All of my clients (multi-billion dollar companies) were off. I was "off" in that I was trying to corral people from those companies who were also supposed to be off because I do press releases and needed approvals.

So yeah, sort of.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 7:05 AM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

In the US, and our company's US offices were closed on the 5th. I answered a few Slack messages from our European counterparts, though.
posted by xingcat at 7:06 AM on July 6, 2021

I had to work, because my current job is on site support stuff that's best done when no one else is there. But, the roads were emptier than even on a weekend, so I'm guessing very few 9 to 5 people had to work that day. This is in Redmond, so heavy bias towards Microsoft/other tech stuff.

That said, I did get the 4th off when I'd ordinarily have been working.
posted by Zalzidrax at 7:18 AM on July 6, 2021

AAA sent us a guy to help out with our car on Sunday July 4 at about 7 pm. He was at our house within 45 minutes of the initial call, and I expect and sincerely hope he was getting paid time and a half, at least.

Lots of things were open yesterday, but my child's preschool was not, so it was helpful that I had a paid day off.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 7:20 AM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

Some local data points (Atlanta):

I think most office workers in the US had off. I did. I work for a Big Company; the policy is that if July 4, Christmas or New Year's falls on a weekend, the adjacent weekday is the holiday. Judging from the volume of e-mail in my inbox this morning (very little), my colleagues also took the holiday.

My kids' daycare, which operates Monday to Friday and is usually closed on July 4, was open. I took them and took advantage of the calendars being out of sync to have a day without kids or work. My understanding is that they had sparse attendance yesterday, perhaps because a lot of other kids' parents also had off. They also had sparse attendance on Friday, July 2, which isn't a holiday for anybody; judging from people's Facebook profiles lots of people went to the beach this weekend.

Except I didn't have the whole day without kids, because one of them had a pediatrician appointment. The pediatrician's office was open as usual; I believe they would have been closed on a weekday July 4.

On the Fourth of July itself we had brunch at a restaurant and went to the supermarket to buy some meat. Those were open. The supermarket was open at least as late as 7 pm when the neighbor kid decided they needed to go grab some fireworks for later.
posted by madcaptenor at 7:27 AM on July 6, 2021

Think of the logic here - most people with money expect to spend their holidays enjoying the services of others, which means the others have to work. People expect to be able to take advantage of July 4th sales, people expect to be able to go to restaurants, etc. Which means, again, that the people who make the least money and have the hardest jobs have to work, and it's not as if there's a separate "retail holiday" for them to make up for it either.
posted by Frowner at 7:33 AM on July 6, 2021 [8 favorites]

I missed recycling pickup today because I assumed that the sanitation workers in my city had yesterday off, which would have meant that the pickup would have been bumped from the usual day (today) to tomorrow. Fortunately, I realized the mistake in time to get my garbage out. (The city website said they had July 4 off, but since that was a Sunday and not a day they work, I assumed they'd get the next day, as I did. I assumed incorrectly.)

But "most people"? I think that's impossible to answer, really. Probably most office workers had the day off, but I don't know what percentage of workers in the US are office workers.
posted by FencingGal at 7:33 AM on July 6, 2021

I've been working from home since the beginning of covid because I've got the sort of job where I can. I live in a working class neighborhood where the majority of people are employed in jobs that can't be done remotely. You can get a pretty good idea of people's work hours by how much the street parking clears up. I would say that yesterday was about 10-20% more full than a regular week day, so that's probably around how many people had the day off.

My company had an all US employees holiday yesterday because we've got the sorts of jobs where we can.
posted by phunniemee at 7:33 AM on July 6, 2021

Response by poster: No joke. Just curious. My perspective is warped from having been retired for 24 years, and out of the country for 18 of those years. Lots of changes over the years. When I was little, most retail was closed on Sundays, like in Germany. And they hadn't yet done the Monday holiday thing.
posted by Goofyy at 7:46 AM on July 6, 2021 [3 favorites]

It also varies a fair amount by state and municipality, too. Not every state recognizes federal holidays (RI doesn't do President's Day, several states don't do MLK's birthday). In the rush to make Juneteenth a federal holiday this year, RI didn't manage to make it a State holiday, but the City of Providence made it a municipal one, so federal and city offices were closed, but state offices open.

In RI, most moveable holidays operate on a "closet workday" model, with the exception of the 4th, which is legally mandated to be the Monday after. RI also still celebrates VJ Day. States are weird.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:59 AM on July 6, 2021

My university officially gives the day off, and always does the "closest workday".

My international organization chose the weekend of the 3-5 for its online conference. So I worked yesterday, and I'm more than a bit cranky about it.
posted by Dashy at 8:04 AM on July 6, 2021

"closet workday"

As amusing as this idea is, I meant "closest workday." Thanks, autocorrect!
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:29 AM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

I was surprised that my veterinarian's office was open. When the 4th is on a weekday they close the office.

If I had to estimate I would say the majority of people did not have yesterday off.
posted by muddgirl at 8:50 AM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

Most offices around here were closed yesterday. I do know a couple of offices that don't do the closest work day to the holiday off thing - but for the most part they do.

we were in another state for the 4th, i was suprised by how many restuarants were closed but some of that might have been because it was Sunday.

PTO policies are much better here than they were 20 years ago, but particularly retail/food service jobs will never catch up to that. Plumbers and the like here were on call yesterday, meaning they will come but you will pay an upcharge. Fair enough, as far as i am concerned.
posted by domino at 9:26 AM on July 6, 2021

Every company I've ever been at has it in the handbook that there are X number of Paid Holidays (New Years Day, Memorial Day, ID4, Labor Day, etc) and instead of having to change that number every time a holiday falls on a weekend, or catch static from employees that feel cheated out of a holiday, they just give the adjacent Friday or Monday off. It's just easier for everyone.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:41 PM on July 6, 2021

I belong to a union (the Newspaper Guild), and the contract at the newspaper that employs me provides for a July Fourth holiday. When the Fourth is on a Saturday, we have Friday off. When the Fourth is on a Sunday, we have Monday off.

Of course, some employees (reporters, copy editors, obituary assistants, photographers, press operators) have to work on the holiday. They get time and a half plus receive (I believe) a different day off that week.
posted by virago at 7:26 PM on July 6, 2021

I'm a corporate office worker. Our business is media services, which means being able to move files around and respond to customers 24/7. My normal workweek is Sunday-Thursday.

I had Monday off, but worked Sunday, July 4.
posted by itesser at 8:02 PM on July 6, 2021

It may come down to the "most" part. Certainly, most office workers were off.

ding ding ding. Most times, conversations that include the phrase "most people (thing)" includes only the cohort that the person saying "most people" belongs to. If someone works in an office, it's completely normal to think "most people get the 4th of July off", because it's a standard federal holiday that someone more than likely gets as a benefit at their own office job. But if you have friends that work in food service, or retail, or hospitality...yeah, ain't no such thing as a day off in those industries for the most part.

There's no one answer to the "did most people have to work on July 5" question, because different business sectors approach holiday work/non-work in different ways.
posted by pdb at 8:56 PM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]