Practice Management

Dude, where's my MLK Day?

By Dan Hull

UPI reports that, in Cincinnati today, "Construction work faces MLK Day protests". It's nice to see that Americans everywhere remember and honor a great man and world leader. But implying that people who want to work today cannot work on a public school construction site? Hey, Cincinnati NAACP Chapter, we love you. We love Dr. King. We love the Queen City. But the entire U.S. in not yet a nationalized Oberlin College. Not yet, anyway. Get the net. Excerpt:

CINCINNATI, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- An NAACP official said Cincinnati Public Schools construction sites faced protests Monday because of work taking place on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Christopher Smitherman, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, said while students and school staff had off for Monday's holiday, construction workers were busy working on the day honoring the fallen civil rights leader, The Cincinnati Enquirer said.

"The public school offices are closed, the teachers are not working, the children are home from school, but, for some reason, Cincinnati Public Schools allows this work to go on on Martin Luther King Day,'' said Smitherman, whose fellow NAACP members were joined by Baptist Ministers Conference officials Monday.

School board president Eileen Cooper Reed defended the construction work on the public holiday, saying the administration allowed contractors to decide whether or not work would take place Monday.

"These are for the most part hourly employees,'' Reed said of the construction workers. "If they don't work, they don't get paid. There are a lot of people working today."

Full post as published by What About Clients? on January 19, 2010 (boomark / email).