to think the government has no grounds to control when shops are open and for how long

[Objection]

Like many people, I'm always thrown by shop closures at Easter. I really don't understand WHY the government deems it necessary to restrict or ban shops from opening - surely that should be at the owners descretion?
Unless I'm missing some crucial point, surely Easter is optimum time for shopping and the economy would benefit from it?

I'm not suggesting anyone should be forced to work shifts if they're that desperate to spend Easter Sunday at home, but that a lot of retail workers would be glad to go in on what is essentially just another Sunday, but be paid twice the hourly amount for doing it. As long as they're not forced into it, had the opportunity to have the day off if they wanted, but were offered a good incentive to work, how is that so awful? I used to work Sundays, bank holidays, Boxing Day etc, it didn't bother me. Clearly it would bother some people. But there should be the option if workers did want the extra shifts and money, which at the moment there isn't.

When I was a nurse, if we worked a bank holiday, we got time-and-a-half, and a day off in lieu. So I did get paid when I had to work Christmas and Easter.

I am baffled by this weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth because there are two or three days in the whole bloody year when people can't go to the shops

That is not the point I'm trying to make! I have, and lots of other posters have, made many points other than "but I want to shop, wahhhh!".

Objection "My point is more generalised against the government needlessly banning things however"

Vivacia "I would rather that opening hours were left to the shops."

caroldecker "Of course the govt should not interfere - there are many things it should stop doing and this is one of them"

ElseaStars "Let the shops decide - it's just another bloody day!"

Objection "But it isn't "just so people can shop" - it's about the business owners as well as the consumers"

Objection "But its not the government's place to "promote family life" - it's the government's job to ensure the country is safe and the economy sound. not to make sure people spend more time with their kids"

ItsAFuckingVase "the whole Sunday trading hours is archaic. It came to be long before our society took the form it has today. We now live in a 24/7 world. As most people work Monday - Friday, the weekend is the time they will spend money. Limiting this to 6hrs on a Sunday can't be good for the economy. Tourists are usually baffled as to why everything shuts on Sundays too."

Andrewofgg "When the Sunday trading laws were suspended over the Olympics it did not lead to a mass outbreak of bubonic plague, did it?
Time for deregulating bricks-and-mortar shops so that they can compete with the internet traders who did not exist in 1994."

ItsAFuckingVase "Honestly, I don't want to shop today. I also don't want somebody else to choose my shopping on my behalf and deliver it to me. I just think tb e whole thing is completely archaic. I struggle to see the sense in having a day of no trading sandwiched between 2 bank holidays. Bank holidays drive expenditure."

TheGirlFromIpanema "I don't object to shops being shut (only bigger ones of course) I do object to policy/law whatever being determined by religious dates hmm
That applies to Sunday opening hours too imho."

WhosLookingAfterCourtney "It's only so the church can pretend we're still 'a Christian country'"

TheGirlFromIpanema "Old fashioned and there should be no place for such legislation in modern day UK."

picnicbasketcase "Completely agree actually - it's not an issue of whether people can cope for two days a year without shopping, of course they can. But the shops should decide when to open, rather than operating under an irrelevant law."

Slackgardener "I'm not shopping obsessed but not being religious we don't distinguish between days off and dislike having the gov/church attempt to control how we spend our free time."

picnicbasketcase "Nobody is saying they have to be able to shop every day. The point is that shops should decide when to open and close, not have to abide by rules made ages ago as a sop to a religion that the majority of the country is not a part of."

Slackgardener "Of course we all survived...it's not the point. I don't even bloody like shopping I just hate someone else imposing their view of how I should spend the day. If you don't want to shop or watch tv or go to the pub then don't but why to we need a law insisting we all do the same?"

Picnicbasketcase - if they were getting double time, and weren't being forced into it, I think that would be fine - but that isn't the reality. Some on this thread have shared their experiences of the threat, real or implied, that their job could be at risk if they don't do the extra hours, or of having contracts that say they can't have any Bank Holidays off, or they can't have any leave between early November and the end of the New Year sales!

The big retailers don't seem to value their staff or treat them decently at the moment. So at least they get a couple of Bank Holidays off, and I can't go,to the shops - I can live with that.

We are in Switzerland where shops are closed all day Good Friday, all day Easter Sunday and all day Easter Monday. I like it. I didn't used to but now i do. You plan ahead and make sure you have enough food. It is a lovely long relaxing family weekend.

Shops are also closed all day Sunday, bar the boulongerie and the odd garden centre. Gardening is banned. Use of the hoover or washing machine is banned. Which means no housework and just lovely family time. To me it makes Sunday feel like a special day. People are relaxed, there is a lovely warm cosy family feel to the day. Lots of people walking their dogs and taking kids and grannies out for family fun outdoors.

When i go back to Britain the Sundays don't feel any different to any other day of the week. Which i do find a shame. Mum does housework, Dad is in the garden and DSis is out shopping. Maybe there would be few less problems in society if people were encouraged forced to spend one day a week not working and with their families. Obviously emergency services have to work. But they are really valued and cherished for sacraficing their Sundays.

I'm not suggesting anyone should be forced to work shifts if they're that desperate to spend Easter Sunday at home, but that a lot of retail workers would be glad to go in on what is essentially just another Sunday, but be paid twice the hourly amount for doing it.
Double pay for Sundays and bank holidays ended a long time ago. And as not being forced to work shifts people in retail rarely have ANY say into what day they get off. I remember having to look at the rota on Friday to see what day I was off the next week.

The use of a hoover or washing machine are banned? By law?
WTAF

OP, by demanding your choice, you are automatically not respecting those who do not wish to work for religious reasons, but who are obliged to do so.
I do not need to 'get my head out of my arse' (charming), and have read all your posts, and all your contradictions, don't worry.

Find me the supermarket or retailer that does not include Sundays and bank holidays into normal rotas

double time went out with the start of sunday opening

and those dire wages are subsidised with tax credits - from you and I straight into the pockets of the fat cats

OP - you are being quite hysterical.

Catsize - well said.

practically every country in europe has national holidays when shops government departments etc shut, most countries in europe have more restrictions than UK not less and most shut for more national holidays while UK has 8 national holidays bigger shops are only restricted on 2 days in the whole year

in France all restaurants have to shut 1 day a week (most chose monday/tuesday) Germany also shuts on all sundays not exactly a backward country apart from petrol stations on motorway and kiosks at railway stations and some tourist shops 24 hour opening is unusual

most european countries with sunday opening denmark spain do not allow opening on national holidays

BioSuisse - ban hoovering, washing machine, gardening, really? - and yet you are on the Internet which isn't exactly helping family life is it, do you Mumsnet with your family? We do gardening and cleaning as a family!

Maybe they should ban the Internet on a Sunday too?

Well I had a walk up to our local high street today at about 4.30pm. It was utter bliss. Just like Sundays used to be on Sundays

Yes it's all this governments fault,

Shops close on a Sunday here.

Also early Christmas Eve & all day Christmas Day & Boxing Day.

So if CD & BD are fri & sat, then closed as usual on the Sun, thats three days

The washing machine/hoovering thing isn't about family life, it's about not disturbing your neighbours if you live in close proximity to them e.g. apartment blocks. The internet doesn't normally make much noise so is fine.

^"The use of a hoover or washing machine are banned? By law?
WTAF"^ Sshh - don't tell dh that hoovering isn't a permanently banned activity!

There is some very muddled thinking on this thread. You don't want the government meddling in when businesses can be open yet you are aghast at the treatment of the retail workers and think they require protection but the law was set to protect the retail workers so that they were guaranteed time off without having to negotiate nor being threatened with the sack if they don't work. It is the government's job - to set laws and to balance the needs of the entire population, not just the businesses but the employees as well. Shops have 363 days a year to trade, it won't be the end of their business if they can't open for a couple of days. They aren't losing money, they will just get it on other days.

I was similarly amused by the comment that most people work 9-5 and like to have the weekend to shop together so the shops have to be open 365 days a year. There are 2.7 million retail workers in this country - they don't get the weekends off to go shopping with their families, they are working. Perhaps they appreciate the chance to have a day off to be with their families.

You are complaining about Easter Sunday being designated a no shopping day but why are you not saying the same thing about Christmas. Could that be because you personally celebrate a form of Christmas and so businesses being open make no difference to you?

I find it interesting that many of us who remember the shops being shut on Sundays are more than happy to go back to that now. It won't happen of course but it would be great. It is a shame more people don't have a bit of imagination and realise that there is more to life than shopping and making money.

For those who don't live in an apartment block would it be ok to use a washing machine? What about a dishwasher in an apartment block, that can be pretty noisy or a wii or a musical instrument - ds practicing his violin can be....well, interesting - my hair dryer is as noisy as my vacuum cleaner. My food processor is manically loud, as is my kitchen aid...do they legislate for all these household noises?

Go to a country where most shops are closed on a Sunday and you will understand why it would be better to have more days with most shops closed not less.

All the wider opening hours does is increase retailing in a few companies' hands with the result of less choice, less diversity in brands and styles, and turn many small to medium size towns into clone towns with many empty or underused premises.

It is nice to have a day of less traffic, noise and just something different. Most of the people who want shops open more I bet are the last who would ever work after 5pm or on a Sunday, and the first to want their holidays from work to their wishes, to hell with anyone else.

I work in retail. I work every other weekend: we have four family days per month. I have had to work Good Friday and Saturday, and I will work tomorrow. We cannot take time off in April, May or June. We do not get paid extra for working on a bank holiday or the weekend. Without government legislation I would have had to work today so would not have been able to spend Easter with my family. It is that simple!

Roaring with laughter at the OP's post on page 6.

I have 2 degrees and years of professional training, and you think I'm working as a waitress out of free will

Like me and the majority of my colleagues, we're not there because we want to be, we're there because we need to be or else we'd have no money.

I hate my job, the pay is shit and no, I don't get holidays, leave, or, in fact, any breaks. That's always fun on a 9-hour shift with nowhere to sit down! But never you mind, I've worked Thurs, Fri, yesterday, today and I'll be working tomorrow too, the same rota I've been working since fucking JANUARY (i.e. no weekends off this year!), just so people like you and all the others agreeing with you can come in, snap your fingers at me and demand a coffee whilst I'm trying to clear up the cake the previous encumbents toddler has crushed into the upholstery. Hell, I'll even smile for you. What's a couple of special days a year versus your own gratification hey?

Incidentally, most European countries shut completely on Sundays, some weekdays. Some even close every afternoon! How they haven't descended into sheer anarchy is just amazing. I bloody wish our government would take a leaf out of their book - can't we all just slow down a bit please? I'd love to move to France in my dreams

tries not to cry over life situation for the millionth time this year

I would like to see a return to shops being shut every Sunday. Why people can't manage without shops being open every fucking day is beyond me. Give the staff a guaranteed day off. Shopping for pleasure is the oddest concept to me.

if there wasn't legislation the shops would be open.

They are shut, what, 3 days a year? yabu