Four days after the assassination of The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968), legislation was introduced to make MLK Jr. Day a federal holiday. However, it took 15 years before legislation was passed (1983). Then, it was another three years before the legislation and MLK Jr. Day were in effect (1986).
By merging the Lincoln and Washington birthday celebration into one holiday it made room in the federal calendar to add Martin Luther King day without impacting the work time in labor contracts and other employment agreements.
This gets more complicated because later many companies offered people either the Columbus Holiday or MLK holiday at an option, but not both.
Lastly the Federal Holidays only impact federal workers and federal facilities. The holidays are actually established by the individual states. This also impacted the roll out of MLK day.
Four days after the assassination of The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968), legislation was introduced to make MLK Jr. Day a federal holiday. However, it took 15 years before legislation was passed (1983). Then, it was another three years before the legislation and MLK Jr. Day were in effect (1986).
By merging the Lincoln and Washington birthday celebration into one holiday it made room in the federal calendar to add Martin Luther King day without impacting the work time in labor contracts and other employment agreements.
This gets more complicated because later many companies offered people either the Columbus Holiday or MLK holiday at an option, but not both.
Lastly the Federal Holidays only impact federal workers and federal facilities. The holidays are actually established by the individual states. This also impacted the roll out of MLK day.