EDITORIAL HOLIDAYS GALORE CESAR CHAVEZ BECOMES THE LATEST EXCUSE FOR BUREAUCRATIC IDLENESS.

IT'S time to rename Los Angeles City Hall the Holiday Inn.

With the City Council's decision to add Cesar Chavez Day to the public employees' ever-growing list of paid holidays, the taxpayer-funded vacation never seems to end for Los Angeles bureaucrats, many of whom ``work'' only three or four days a week, anyway.

Here's what the calendar looks like for an L.A. city employee:

The year starts with the customary New Year's Day off, followed, less than three weeks later, with Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Then, in February, there is Presidents Day, and there's the new Chavez holiday at the end of March.

Of course, there are also the big-three summer holidays - Memorial, Independence and Labor days - plus Columbus Day in October and Veterans Day in November. Since one day isn't enough to celebrate Thanksgiving, L.A. bureaucrats also get off the following Friday.

Then there's Christmas.

City workers used to get one-half day for Christmas Eve, too, but they had to give that up to get off the full Chavez holiday in March.

This is what passes for tough negotiating with the the public-employee unions down in City Hall: Give up half a day, get a whole day in return. And let's get real; how many bureaucrats will actually be working after lunch on Christmas Eve?

But then, city leaders had no choice. Scrapping Columbus Day to make room for Chavez would have been perceived as an insult to L.A.'s Italian-Americans. And not observing Cesar Chavez Day would be an affront to L.A.'s Latinos, right?

Not exactly.

The purpose of public holidays is not to commemorate cultures. If it were, there would need to be far more of them. How come Jews, Greeks, Armenians, Arabs and American Indians don't get theirs? Instead, it's to celebrate specific people or events - say, America's veterans or Columbus' discovery of the New World - that warrant public pause and reflection.

But realizing that there are only 365 days a year and that public employees should be required to work on at least some of them, it's not necessary to commemorate every worthwhile historical figure with more paid time off.

Chavez, champion of poor and exploited farm workers, has been honored in many more appropriate ways, as in bestowing his name on 23 schools and 19 streets throughout the country, including Cesar Chavez Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles.

Cesar Chavez Day was never about honoring Chavez, but about raining one more benefit on the public-employee unions, which work tirelessly in and contribute heavily to city officials' campaigns, and supporting their policies of robbing taxpayers to feed the privileged insiders.

And now, by stoking the flames of ethnic politics, the council has arranged for just that - one more perk in the bureaucratic package, an extra half day - really a full day - off, with no concessions extracted in return.

Give the unions credit: They have clout and a voice in City Hall. Too bad we can't say the same for L.A. taxpayers.