To think that Sunday trading hours need to be abolished?

[HFJ]

I remember the hullabaloo about Sunday trading back in the late 80s

Whenever I talk to people about this, many usually give the following reasons why Sunday trading restrictions are a good thing:

1. Everyone can have Sunday lunch/family time together
2. Retail workers can have some weekend time off

However, I can’t be the only person who thinks the above is BALONEY

On the family time thing, I object for feminist reasons because it usually means a hard-working woman somewhere has to peel potatoes and rustle up a Sunday lunch for everyone else. Then, when she has done all that, can she treat herself to an emergency handbag, pair of shoes, just get away and meet a friend for coffee, or perhaps get the family shopping in on before the working week starts? Can she heck. Why? Because of some Bishops in the house of lords decree that the world should shut and therefore her indoors should remain indoors.

On the weekend time off thing, I really don’t see what the issue is. There are plenty of students who would like to and need to work. Also, there’s nothing to stop religious workers asking their employer to prioritise time off on Sunday for them (just as Muslims, Jews, people with caring responsibilites can make requests).

Am I the only one who feels this way?

@TrashedSofa colleagues not "mates". Random people I worked with who were aged between 15 and mid 20s.
To be honest I would have preferred not to work but I needed the money. So I did it.

Colleagues, then. The point remains. People just make vague guesses that students will fill the gaps for an entire sector, without any real basis for it.

You lost me at from a feminist point of view FFS 🤦

Most shops are open from 10/ 10.30- 4.30 which is ample time to go and shop along with the 6 other days in the week and 24/7 online shopping. Recently visited a major city in Spain and was surprised that all the shops were closed on Sunday, while I was a bit upset that my plans for a shopping trip was cancelled I loved the idea that all the retail workers had a day off. The streets were filled with people and families in restaurants and cafes enjoying time together instead.

@TrashedSofa I am going by the experience of the 2 decades I worked in retail. Weekends and evening staff were pretty much all students during the 90s/00s.
Things have changed now. There is more red tape about employing under 18s and retailers tend to insist on "flexible" contracts (practically zero hour contracts but by a different name) expecting staff to work anytime with no set shifts or patterns.
But....if retailers went back to the old system of set shifts and you had a dedicated weekend staff team - then a lot of that team would be students.

I wish the shops opened earlier on a sunday, the sunday hours are really antiquated and seem to cater for brits who like to get drunk most saturdays and can't cope with an early start.

Also the lack of late night cafes is shite. It's not wonder people turn to booze for entertainment.

Or maybe people have other priorities for those hours of the day. It's not really for anyone else to judge that a person is deficient if they don't conform to outdated trading hours.

Just because something suits you doesn't mean it suits others. Merchants who wish to succeed need to organise themselves around the desires and needs of their patrons, not the other way round.

Exactly. Retailers who expect to work bankers hours are nuts. Most households no longer have a SAHM who can nip to the shops mid-morning on a weekday.

Then they complain because the public uses supermarkets and Amazon instead of gyrating around the limited hours on the high street. Crazy.

Yes, things have changed now. A loooot. You're right about the red tape for under 18s, which wouldn't be going anywhere.

But your last sentence is just a guess, with nothing to back it up. The labour market is vastly different to what it was in the 90s and 00s. We've never had much in the way of retail in either early mornings or evenings on Sundays, and services people may need for work like public transport are often more limited then. Which you've just not accounted for at all.

The hospitality industry is also more stuck for staff than they were 20 or 30 years ago, and people wanting to work on Sundays have that option already. That tells us something about how popular low paid Sunday work actually is, and how likely it is that there's a substantial workforce just waiting in the wings to fill it, just because people would like there to be.

@TrashedSofa I agree with the issue around public transport.
That's a viscous circle though. People want to work Sundays/evenings but can't because they can't get there due to lack of public transport. Buses don't run because they say they don't have enough passengers. But they don't have passengers because there are no buses.....
Yes low paid Sunday work isn't popular. But tbh neither is low paid Monday - Saturday work. People do it be because they need money not out of joy of the job.
Why is it "ok" to work for low pay Monday - Saturday but not Sunday? What's the difference?

Would you then expect all other industries to follow suit?
If someone works all day sundays because people want to do their shopping, can the banks please open so they can go on the way home? And the solicitors? Because they shouldnt have to have to take an extra trip out on their day off during the week, because nothing else is open, surely? And can schools open to educate kids on a 7day rota basis?
There are very few industries where we expect people to give up all their family time. If you work Saturday every week, would that exempt you from Sundays? Would you be happy receiving a reduced standard of service because the only people who want to work sundays are kids, who will rarely stay in the job long term, or care outside of getting their paycheck each month?
Shops aren't closed on Sundays unless they want to be. Restrictions only apply to larger shops, plus 6 hours is plenty, so there's no reason people can't shop in a Sunday if they are lucky enough to get the day off.
It's fine as it is.

Demand for public transport doesn't automatically create supply, though. You probably know there's a big national shortage of bus drivers at the moment, for example. Trying to stretch an already insufficient workforce over longer hours is not a viable plan.

You're right that a lot of low paid Monday to Saturday work isn't popular.... hence a lot of those jobs aren't getting filled either. We have a labour shortage. And that's the main point here, really. Low paid jobs that need doing in person at unsociable hours aren't popular, for all sorts of wider social reasons. There's no reason to suppose they'll become more if the unsociable hours are extended, but that's exactly what people do when they make the students assumption.

It’s absurd to me that shops are t open as usual on Sundays and they should be I agree

Oh yes, and obviously the bus drivers should have to work too, as how else do you expect those who don't drive to get to work.
And garages, because those who do drive need some way of getting that puncture fixed on the way into work.

@sparkellie yes but the retail industry is struggling. Major companies that have been around for decades are going or gone bust. Town centres and shopping malls are empty and boarded up and becoming derelict waste grounds.
Surely the first rule of any industry is "what can we do to be successful?".
Retail at the moment isn't very successful. It's dying. So it's time things changed and the industry adapted to the needs of their customer base.

Banks are effectively open 24/7 because of online banking which is how most people bank these days, hence the massive number of bank closures in the last decade or so.

Likewise with shops - they're closing because people can shop online 24/7.

Lots of helplines are open 12 hours 7 days per week, such as insurance legal helplines, car breakdown CS helplines, Virgin/Sky/BT television, broadband and mobile phone call centres, even some Govt depts such as HMRC work extended hours outside the traditional M-F 9-5.

No industry "expects people to give up all their family time". Workers work shifts and have days off.

@TrashedSofa yes I know there's a shortage of bus drivers. There's actually a shortage of a lot of things. It's all a bit crap really 🙁

The thing with this is, 'the industry' is people working. The fact that some people want a particular service to exist doesn't mean anyone else is willing to provide it at the price they want to pay for it. Demand doesn't automatically create supply, especially not in a society with a shortage of workers already.

I agree, but they aren't struggling because they close at 5pm on a Sunday, and people aren't able to get to the shops any other time, which is the only thing linger opening hours on a Sunday would solve.

There is indeed, and a lot of it feeds into each other. I think we cross posted, but basically, we've recently become a society that doesn't have enough workers for all the things we might want, and we're still collectively getting used to that. It's one thing to identify a gap in the market, quite another to be able to get people to fill it.

@TrashedSofa I hate to blame Brexit. It's such a cliche to do that...but I know several families who basically left the UK after Brexit. A large proportion of the UK work force basically stuck their fingers up and said "see you around then" and left. Now we don't have enough workers 🤔

Well, it didn't exactly help!

But a phone call isnt the same as an actual face to face conversation.
How often are there complaints on here about those kind of calls, the long wait times, the lack of ability to speak to an actual person, nothing actually getting rectified unless you are available to go and see someone face to face mon-fri 9-5?? Those things would be solved if the services were accessible.
People are being forced into online banking because banks in rural areas are closing to save money. They should be thinking about the customer, same as retailers surely?

Exactly this. I work Monday to Friday, mostly 8-5 at home or 8-6 in the field with overnight stays at hotels. Saturday is for catching up on housework. I can’t go out to buy a Christmas handbag in the evening because the shops are shut. Saturdays are heaving because everyone else does their shopping then. Sundays also heaving because everyone’s made a mad dash to cram in their grocery shop before the 4pm Bishop’s gong of doom. I’m just not available to do Christmas shopping on a Tuesday morning. That’s why I end up using Amazon and then retailers moan that the high street is dying.

THE HIGH STREET IS DYING BECAUSE ONLY PENSIONERS CAN GET THERE IN TIME

And now I’m tempted to start another AIBU post about why in God’s name do pensioners insist on doing their shopping on a Saturday.

I've worked Sundays and all hours for 22 years...on the Tube. Even Night Tube. The demand is there. Sunday trading is nonsense when many other people in many other jobs work "unsocial" hours.

Open on Sunday, don't open on Sunday, both are fine. Just hate that shops are being dictated to by legislation.