Sunday Trading Laws

[TheDevilWearsPrimark]

Is it just me that thinks this is an antiquated law and should be scrapped?

There are two issues - 1) is opening on Sundays bad in itself and 2) how retail staff are treated. They're seperate issues and the Sunday working law surely isn't there to protect the retail worker from being exploited? (I can't be bothered to read the wiki entry so am just making an assumption that it's a left over from the old day sof Sunday being a day of rest, no work, church attendance etc).

I am anti 2) and feel strongly that retail staff should be treated better and that hours, pay, overtime etc should be agreed up front. However, on 1) I think that closing shops on Sundays is entirely ridiculous as it is done for religious and other reasons which are not necessarily valid anymore. And there are a lot of people who would find Sunday shops opening very helpful - for a start, next time we have friends round for lunch on a Sunday it would be lovely not to have to stand outside the supermarket waiting for it to open so that I can dash inside and buy whatever it is that I most need before everyone arrives.

Personally, I'd rather shops were closed entirely on Sundays than these silly hours. As it is, I am being penalised because I don't go to Church first thing on a Sunday and therefore don't need to wait until 11:00 to do my shopping. Either make it open like a normal day or have the courage of your convictions and close it for the whole day.

Please don't take away my early morning shopping slot. It is the only thing that keeps me sane when I have 400 things to do on the weekend - knowing I can hit wherever it is early, before the crowds, focus on my purchases and get out by 11:00 to do whatever else I need to do is key to me. If all the other shoppers want to go when it's really busy and takes three times longer to do anything, that's fine. But don't penalise me because I choose to get up early and get things done.

yes lets make Sunday a normal day

let's have schools and offices open and Sundays too

see how you like that

The entitlement of all this is quite staggering!

It woul;d be a PITA if shops each chose their own 'closing day' per week - you'd be forever turning up & finding the shop you wanted was closed that day, because you forget 'their' closing day.

I, too, would like a return to the days when only Garden Centres were open. I like a day of rest, a family day, when there's no 'pull' to go into town, and (nearly) everyone knows they get a prescribed day off.

Where my ILs live in France all the shops are shut from Saturday lunchtime until Tuesday morning. (If you're desperate for a pint of milk you can get one in the bar.) People manage.

We live in a society that increasingly is more fluid about what you do, with who, where and when. And shops should adapt to this. So should offices and all other activities. I never really understand why, if your business is open 7 days a week, the assumption is that staff have to work 7 days a week. We all keep hearing about people out of work etc etc etc so what about sensible job sharing? Hire more people, but for fewer hours. Some of the professional services firms have done a version of this in the last year - asking staff to reduce their working weeks to four days a week and get paid less in order to prevent the firm having to make large scale redundancies. I love the idea, if it can be done right.

The reality is that people no longer do the "work for 8 hours, sleep for 8 hours, recreation for 8 hours" thing so we need to find ways to make it work better for everyone. If you're working 12 hour days (which I think is a bad idea) then you need your service providers to be open at better times. If you work in London servicing clients in the US then the chances are your busiest time is the middle of the night but you're free by day. That's happening more and more and we should be adapting.

Perhaps this is why places like India are taking so many jobs from people - they are willing and able to adapt and provide the service to Europe or the US, even though it's inconvenient for them. I assume (I hope) that they get other benefits that make it up - the ability to go to school by day or spend time with their children, for example.

On the one hand, I do not see why on EARTH the shops need to be open any longer than they already are. I have done shift work all my life and have never struggled to buy bread when I need it.

On the other hand, it rankles that we have a religiously assigned day that the shops should not open fully. That pisses me off, and makes me want them open.

Do you guys really not have 24 hour shopping, 7 days? Even my nearest town - not a big one by any means - has a 24-hour Asda, and a 24-hour Tesco...

(Scotland)

(You can't buy booze 24 hours, though)

Well yes there are 24 hour supermarkets, but they can only be open for 6 hours on a Sunday.

Does make me laugh as an offie near me is open 24 hours 7 days, as are petrol stations, cafes etc.

I guess that the work/home balance that people bang on about only really applies to people with high paying careers?

I haven't seen a reply to someone else's question further up the thread about the difficulties of finding childcare on a Sunday.

As to the outsourcing of jobs to India? I think you'll find that monetary costs far outweigh any other factor. As for the people being willing and able to adapt, I kind of think that choices are fairly limited for some, and I'd rather not live in a society where the desperate are co-erced into working all hours because someone might fancy popping out to buy a dress at 9.00 in the evening on a Sunday.

I work in a shop & it is open 9-5.30 in the week & 10-4 on a Sunday.I get home about 5.45 so we manage to eat our dinner together as a family & i get to put my ds to bed.

If i had to work till 7 i wouldn't see my ds at all so i am very much opposed to opening shops till 7 in the evening.

Many of us shop workers work in shops as it fits in around child care issues,if you expect us all to open till all hrs & full days on Sundays then i wouldn't be able to work.

Anyway you can shop 24hrs 7 days a week, on the internet.

I work in retail and have done for 10 years and I love it , however I refuse to work Sundays (I have opted out as I believe anyone can unles syou are hired for sunday work)
My DP works a night shift and my eldest is at school, on the weeks I work a Sunday (which was 2 out of 4 minimum) I would only have a few hours with DS of an evening once I returned home, we woudl only be able to spend any quality time together 2 days per month, hmmm cracking, how wonderful for me (and I dont want anyone spouting the old 'if you dont like it find a new job' thing, I was hired beofre we traded on sundays) and my family.

Yes its not working 7 days a week but its a pain in the arse, and in most retail outfits you dont get saturday off if you work Sunday so while everyone else who doesnt work in retail is enjoying family time/time with friends, we dont, having a shorted day is nice sometimes and people should think of that sometimes

2 family days a month, hmmm bt alot of office workers would be up in arms about that!

This law should definitely be scrapped.

It might have made some sense when most families had one parents at home all day, so in effect you had 6 days during which to do whatever shopping needed to be done.

Now the government pursues policies that make it hard for families not to have two working parents (if indeed two parents there are, and if not they are trying to force lone parents out to work when their children are small). In that circumstance to severely limit the shop opening hours on one of only two days that most families can use to buy the things they need is stupid.

Perhaps we should scrap weekends altogether and have work places open 7 days a week.

Ooh, and school would be open 7 days a week too. Fabulous.

'You can foster family time any day of the week. It doesn't matter what day it is but I do find this obsession with Sundays very bizarre.'

er no you can't because schools, preaschools and nurseries are open mon - fri
so which day are you proposing to be a family day exactly?

"Perhaps we should scrap weekends altogether and have work places open 7 days a week."

LOL

Reminds me of my Granny's cousin who was a bus driver and couldn't see why he couldn't work 9-5 like everyone else.

If you work in a service industry, like retail, you need to be able to work when it is useful for people to be able to avail of the services you are offering.

What are you going to do on Sunday with your families with all leisure centres closes so staff can have the day off? Will you close all bowling alleys, swimming pools, castles, zoos or do their staff not count in this retail-free dream?

Why do you need to go somewhere to enjoy family time? On my Sundays off we stay round the house & play games together or we go for a nice walk round our countryside.

What is so wrong with keeping Sundays as a family day?

Why are people so obsessed with having to have the shops open 24/7?

'or take them swimming
or go to the cinema...'

and the staff there? they don't have families?

Most shops are open on a Sunday, but for limited hours.

It's called a compromise I believe.

There appears to be a paradox in "the government pursuing anti-family policies so therefore people working in retail should work longer hours"

Don't people who work in retail have families then?

I hate all this work, work, work, work, we all need to be buying, consuming, out shopping, working a bit more attitude we appear to have adopted.

The shops on the continent stay open longer, but they close during the day for a period of time. There's no bloody balance here at all.