I think the current 6 hours opening on sundays for supermarkets is long enough

[fortyfide]

It is reported that Georgie Osborne is set to increase the hours they can open on Sundays
I thought 10am to 4pm was adequate.

My DH frequently has to fly out on Sundays for Monday meetings. No one is paying him for time lost in the weekend. He don't get in lieu days during the week either.

He's not in retail. This is '9-5' office work.

Plenty of people have to work on sundays outside retail. And they aren't emergency workers.

The way folk talk about big retailers confuses me a little because the local examples (Sainsbury & Lidl) both have very little job turnover. People who get those jobs don't leave them. Which doesn't indicate that they find themselves working for impossibly demanding employers.

God Sundays used to be miserable desolate wastelands, not lovely family time ffs.

My German friends are "very glad to be living in England where it is possible to pop out for cheese on a Sunday afternoon, rather than back in seventies style Germany."

My DD will happily job share with anyone who doesn't want to work Sundays. Weekend jobs are rarely advertised.

Dp and I were both retail managers and I had to take a substantially lower paid job after mat leave as Sunday working was impossible. Whilst in principle I have no issue with extended Sunday trading we just don't have the infrastructure to be a 7 day society. Childcare is nearly impossible to find on a weekend and Sunday and bank holiday public transport outside of cities is really poor so we would have been forced to be a 2 car family when we really don't need to be.

Anyone thinking that retailers will take on hordes of students to work
Sunday's is very optistic. Exhausting staff will have their shifts flexed to meet the extra opening hours so the retailers can squeeze more profit.

Comparing retail workers to cinema workers etc makes sense to a degree, anyone taking on a retail job in recent years will be well aware it's unsociable work but for many people it will be the only work they've ever done and they started in retail in the days of half day closing and bank holidays off. Workers on the leisure industry will always have expected these shifts.

I'm all for extended Sunday's as long as all other services can be also be extended to meet the needs of retail workers.

exsisting although exhausting works too for retail staff ????

^Anyone thinking that retailers will take on hordes of students to work
Sunday's is very optistic. Existing staff will have their shifts flexed to meet the extra opening hours so the retailers can squeeze more profit.^

I'm not sure I agree with that. DH's experience (large supermarket) is that the retailers carefully manage shifts to ensure that the minimum of paid breaks are required.

Staff are hourly paid. The supermarkets like more bodies as it means more flexibility.

When the shops opened on Sundays during the Olympics it did not cause an outbreak of bubonic plague, did it?

The brick-and-mortar shops need to be able to compete with online shops,or is someone going to suggest they should be restricted too?

And you know: if you want fresh produce in the shops on Monday morning somebody will be driving through the night on Sunday to bring it. And the broadcasting studios. And come to that the churches. The list of places where people work Sundays, Saturdays, late, nights, 24/7/365 and which are not life and death essential is endless. Why should large shops be different?

What does piss me off is that it might be left to local authorities. That will just create more local journeys. If George must do that (1) they must not be allowed to pick and choose part of their areas (2) they must not be allowed to go below six hours and (3) it must be one-way choice. Businesses cannot be expected to expand and employ more people if next May the council may cut their hours back.

Incidentally there are not restrictions on large shops opening on Sunday in Scotland. Is this not a perfect example of an issue where Members from Scotland should not have a vote?

I know what you're saying gnome but it would be fairly easy to manage by giving shorter shifts. A 24 hour contract can be changed from 4 x 6 hour shifts with or breaks to 5 x 4 hour shifts quite easily. I'm still in a service and customer facing role albeit not retail and in every company I've worked for over the last 20 years staff costs are cut year I year out (large supermarket experience here too). Where I work currently every member of staff is on a fully flexible contract, which means one week we can work 8 hours, the following week 30 if the business deems it neccessary. With these sort of contracts being increasingly common there would be no need for extra staff as they would just flex up during busy periods and down in quiet ones.

This has taken a massive toll on the work life balance of many of my colleagues as it is pretty much impossible to find childcare to be flexible with you. When I first started in retail 20 years ago we had weekday and weekend staff, and temps picked up the extra shifts at Xmas. By the time I left retail 3 years ago (household name homewards retailer) we took no temps at all as staff were contracted to be flexible, and all staff had to work every other weekend taking away the need for weekend staff. You only need to read threads on here from despairing parents to see that weekend jobs just aren't there any more.

We don't tell cornflake manufacturers they can't make cornflakes on a Sunday night.

We don't tell insurance companies they can't open their call centres whenever they like.

Why should there be a law that stops retailers opening on a Sunday evening?

People mention retail workers having childcare issues, etc, but they don't have the monopoly on that, it's just modern life; we want things when we want them rather than when we're told we can have them.

If the retailers don't find it profitable to open for longer hours you can be as sure as sure can be that they won't open.

(Now awaiting the lefty cry of 'race to the bottom', or some other crap.)

Lefty Scotland doesn't have an issue with this.
I always think I'm a leftie but then come on MN and it seems like I'm somewhere right of Atilla the Hun

SFAIK Scotland has no laws to restrict Sunday trading because for so long the Presbyterian mentality was so dominant that they were not needed.

Be that as it may, it's not Scotland's business whether we in E and W change our laws and I hope the SNP will stay out of it.

In the end it's going to be a consultation. Get stuck in and say that it's not for Parliament to say when people can trade and when they can't.

I think it's a shame shops are open at all on Sundays. Not for religious reasons. Just to have a day off for more people.

Personally I'd love to go back to no sunday shopping and short pub hours but too many people want to shop and go to pubs for lunch so we're stuck with it.

No shops open meant almost no traffic on the roads, there was one quiet day (except for Sunday afternoon drivers).

EnglishGirlApproximately DH's experience is that the management of the store he works at couldnt manage their way out of a wet paper bag so the solution is always to throw more bodies at the problem.

As the jobs are at NMW (hurrah for the living wage coming in) it is difficult for employers to stamp their feet too hard.

It's all just merging life into a 7 day working week, 24 hours a day - would not like to be a rota setter... what weekend? Used to look forward to a weekend - why bother now... let's open schools all week round too... and banks, and offices, just everywhere really....

Plenty of under 25s to employ at under minimum wage - bet the big supermarkets are rubbing their hands at that... open longer with cheaper staff.... more lovely profit - woo hoo

As a consumer and also one based in Ireland I find Sunday trading (open from 10 or 11 until 6pm depending on the retailer) an absolute godsend. If you're working on a Sunday wouldn't that mean that your 'weekend' would be say on Monday - Tues or something else? So effectively you're not down any time but you're weekend doesn't match up with the calendar weekend. Will this not be the case?

My DD1 just moved from Scotland to England. She was horrified when she rocked up at Sainsbury at 10 am one Sunday only to find it was open 11-5. It seemed strangely weird and old fashioned to her.

I'm delighted. Short Sunday hours have always been an utter pain for me as ds often has sport on a Saturday and a Sunday and I never manage to get to a shop before it closes.

The shops won't necessarily open for longer - they will just have the ability to open for longer (some places may not have the demand). I suspect what we will see is the shops still opening later but closing later.

The big impact will be on smaller shops who have always been allowed to open for longer hours on a Sunday. Now the big shops can have extended opening hours, it will have an impact on them.

So effectively you're not down any time but you're weekend doesn't match up with the calendar weekend

Or your husband's or your children's, or your grandchildren's, or your parents'....

I have noticed- it is all the people who want to SHOP on a Sunday anytime who are saying it is great - have not seen many saying GREAT I want to work longer hours on a Sunday...

Somewhere I belong If you want fresh produce on Monday somebody has to work Sunday and then drive through the night for it to be there - what is the difference?

I have never worked Monday to Friday 9-5 nor did ex dh when we were together. He worked Tuesday till Saturday (finished Sunday at 1am in the morning) then got a week day off instead. The children loved him having a week day off as he could take them to school.

huge amount of jobs are shift work now, not just emergency services (who have always done shifts anyway)

people who work in smaller retail shops like Budgens etc. have always worked Sundays. Ours is open 6am till 11pm on a Sunday. This change is only for large retail stores.

A lot of our friends who need extra money work on weekends as the other parent can look after the dcs.

the difference is in the numbers. around 2 million people - around one tenth of the UKs workforce are employed in large retail stores. 2 million people whose terms and conditions could change overnight depending on the whim of the local government - it is not the people who will gain from this - woo... we'll all be able to shop/work til whenever on a Sunday it is the shareholders.

As an example - used to work for a craft store - big chain... their policy was to stay open as long as the toy shop next door, footfall increases because people go to buy toys and see more "worthy" crafts next door - I got the principle.

But - that did not mean they employed MORE staff when the shop opened later and later - it meant that everyone got extra shifts - of 2-4 hours, on an evening (on a day they would not otherwise have been working - don't like paying for mandatory breaks etc.. ), when there was no childcare available, when the buses went to an hourly service. Travel costs increase, travel time in relation to work time increased - if I was "lucky" enough to be allocated an evening shift I was on buses for 3 hours and working for 3 hours, paying £5 bus fare from earnings of under £20. Whereas for a decent 8 hour shift those ratios are better -but cost the employer more

SomewhereIBelong I think the problem you are highlighting is the problem of all low paid jobs in an area where these are scarce. Basically employers have you over a barrel.

If a supermarket opened up next door but one (on the other side of the toy shop ) then the craft shop would be under pressure to attract staff. There would also be greater pressure to get public transport improved, especially if it was an Asda not a Waitrose.