Quincy City Council approves adopting Juneteenth as city holiday

QUINCY (WGEM) – For most Quincy city employees, federal holidays mean a day off. However, for those not in a union, that does not always apply.

Monday night, the Quincy City Council decided to observe a recently adopted federal holiday as a city one, which could affect those non-union employees.

Juneteenth was made a federal holiday back in 2021, but it was only just adopted as a city holiday in Quincy a few hours ago.

While city employees in a union do get the holiday off currently, non-union officials, mainly those in managerial or supervisor roles, do not.

The resolution, which was passed unanimously by the city council, will now give all city employees the day off on June 19.

City officials said the resolution will level the playing field for employees.

“We took a look at the number of city employees who were affected by this change and again, when our union employees are off for the day, we have supervisors that are working with no one to supervise, so it just made sense from that aspect,” said Kelly Jepcon, director of Quincy Human Resources.

“For our non-union employees, many of them had to come into work that day, but they couldn’t do much work because there are certain things the union employees have to do, so it just created confusion and frustration for a lot of our customers as well,” said Quincy Mayor Linda Moore.

Moore and Jepcon stated the resolution will continue to spread the message of the Juneteenth holiday.

They said the holiday is meant to promote freedom and inclusion in the country and it’s important to make sure everyone has the day off to observe it.

Jepcon added the resolution will not have an effect on the city budget.