Sunday trading laws may be suspended

[Kazzyhoward]

news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-plan-to-lift-sunday-trading-rules-to-boost-economy-12001529

Common sense at last. Allow stores to open longer on Sundays to help avoid queues and congestion in shops. Should have been done back in March.

I feel for the staff that will be expected to work longer hours on the one day they are used to having shorter hours. No need for it.
I'm sure that those who've lost income while shops were shut will be only too glad of the overtime.

I worked in a supermarket as a student, and I used to love working on Sundays because we got paid a premium which meant we received just less than double the usual hourly rate. We were never short of volunteers for Sunday overtime or shift swaps.

I suspect Sunday premiums have gone the way of the dodo though.

I don't have a strong view on Sunday opening, but I think if there are changes, they should make sure Christmas Day and Easter Sunday stay 'special'.

I expect many workplaces will have to spread everyone's shifts out much more.
I hope so it would be a leveller if office workers had to start working Sundays and night shifts.

England's sunday trading laws are nuts. Always does my head in when we go on holiday somewhere south of the border and you're scrabbling around for milk on the Sunday because of restricted opening.

We've always had normal Sunday opening hours in Scotland (well as long as I can remember) and society doesn't fall apart. Some of the big stores here are open 24/7.

Good. Hopefully it stays. The staff won’t be expected to work longer hours unless they want to. If you don’t believe that then you’ve never worked retail.

I've worked in retail many years, and I'm surprised it's taken this long for them to be scrapped... however what I will say is that Sundays (in my experience not in supermarket retail) have always been a day that floor moves have been done, paperwork, payroll, stock takes etc as it's a day where you would have 1.5-2 hours with no customers to get these done out of 'shop hours'. So my concern would be when would all that stuff be done if you are then opening 'normal times' on a Sunday- in the stores that do this.

*The problem is retail these days is you generally have to be available to work at any time of the trading hours, any day, random times, no continuity, no knowing what days you will be working or not.
*
Completely agree with the entirety of this post.. this has always been my experience in retail & my husbands (who works for a supermarket currently).

I have been in a very fortunate position previously of having family to help with childcare, because I have no idea how any in retail would have nursery's or childminders with the way shifts change. It's a complete nightmare.

Everybody who goes on about the poor retail staff has never worked in retail.

Having longer hours to cover doesn't mean that existing staff will have to work longer. It means more shifts to cover therefore more people to employ or staff who want more hours can get them.

Retail rotas are different everywhere but one of the only sectors I have ever worked in with the ability to flex shifts by swapping with colleagues etc. You don't get that in many other jobs.

I think it is a good thing overall.

Everybody who goes on about the poor retail staff has never worked in retail

Rubbish

People just have different experiences...sometimes of the same chain

In most shops people will still work the same number of hours though. They might work a longer shift on a Sunday and have Saturday off or whatever. Will probably create more jobs.