Be Excellent To Each Other

Apparently, Sunday trading laws are being lifted until after the Olympics ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18942729 ) to 'allow businesses to make more money'.

I dislike the Sunday trading laws. Lots. If I want to go shopping at 11pm on a Sunday night and Tesco wants to be open, why the Hell is there a law saying I'm not allowed to, because it's a) Sunday, and b) the shop is over a certain size?

It's down to those pesky bishops in the House of Lords (sub plz chk)

I agree wholeheartedly with Grim... Sundays are shit. See also: Bank holidays.

I thought it was down to the EU, to stop Tesco exploiting their workers or something.

In Carephilly, everywhere that's not a big chain just closes on Sundays, turning the place into a ghost town where only Subway, the pubs and the supermarkets are open.

I largely agree with Grim…, with the caveat that we'd perhaps need some stronger laws in place to ensure employers don't take the piss out of staff, 'forcing' them to work across all days/nights. From a consumer perspective, though, it's bonkers that we have shops open from early Monday through to Saturday evening, and then an oddball weekend gap, during the time most people have off.

Thinking about it, I also wonder how much of a major difference this would make. In our little town (pop ~ 31k), for example, pub hours barely shifted when those laws were relaxed. Our local now opens an hour or so later on Friday and Saturday. It wouldn't surprise me if Sunday trading laws were ditched to see most shops running standard hours on a Sunday (or perhaps later mornings but also later afternoons/evenings), leaving the giants to perhaps go fully 24/7, which in itself wouldn't be a bad thing anyway.

I think that's right, and it somewhat assumes that the workers would rather work less often on a Sunday than any other day of the week.
The Working Time Directive already exists, so why do they need this too?

Perhaps so, but bear in mind that just because Tesco isn't open to the public, it doesn't mean no-one is in there working. People are in the shop 24/7, stacking shelves, taking deliveries, cleaning, etc.

I would totally love stuff to be open all hours on a Sunday. It's a bit of pisser for staff when their contracts pretty much say that they have to work Saturdays/Sundays without an option to opt out though. If you've got a couple where one works a Mon-Fri office job and the other works in a Supermarket, there's a fair chance they'd never have a day off together.

See previous post - the law is about trading, not working.

Exactly. There's very little point in the Sunday trading laws. Tesco employees aren't suddenly going to be "forced" to work over 40 hours a week. They'll just work later on a Sunday and take that time from elsewhere. Also, more jobs would be created to work the extra trading hours.

I'm not sure that's the case; I think it's just something specific to England and Wales, as we don't have the same restrictions in Scotland. There are several 24 hour supermarkets near me which essentially never close.

That's already the case. Supermarkets are open on Saturdays and Sundays, and plenty of people happily work them week in, week out. I worked in one for five years. They'll just be open longer on Sundays, or in the super massive supermarkets' case, they'd be open literally 24/7 instead of 24/6.

And as Grim... says, there's staff in your average supermarket 24/7 363 and a half days a year. In the mid-sized one I worked in, the doors were locked and the place was alarmed on Christmas Eve until Boxing Day morning. That's it. Every single minute of the rest of the year staff were in it.

It can't be an EU thing. Ireland has long opening times on a Sunday - the Tesco in Tallaght was open 8am-10pm on a Sunday, M&S from 9am to 6pm. Always thought it was a C of E thing, six hours max opening for large supermarkets. Hence the growth of Tesco Express and all that.

On the one hand, I do think it is silly. On the other, as soon as the restriction is lifted workers will lose any time and half/double time for Sunday working. So I'm ambivalent about them claiming it is for everyones benefit when it is easy profit and their employees lose out.

Well, they should have listened to the teachers at school.

What they're saying is more likely is that instead of creating more jobs, people would do 6 hour shifts 7 days a week instead of 7 hour shifts 6 days a week. And the staff don't want that, for quite obvious reasons.

Hmm. I'm not sure that's technically legal though, and not because of Sunday trading. Pretty sure you're legally entitled to one day off at the very least. It's amongst those laws about the amount of time you're supposed to have off between shifts of certain lengths.

Totally fumbling in the dark here, though.

Why do you think that will happen?

I didn't ever get any extra money for working Sundays.

Maybe that's true. It's still a pisser that the day of you get wouldn't be the same day as your partner, or wouldn't be a day where you need to be at home because the kids aren't at school.

ANYWAY, I can't see any valid reason for not having full Sunday trading other than it being harsh on employees.

Cheers Mali!

That's just part and parcel of working in retail!

Feex.

The argument will be "Sunday is just like any other day of the week".

It is, only the shops shut at 4pm

I can see where you're coming from, but I'm not so pessimistic. For starters, the concept of "Sunday" and Sunday Trading Laws aren't necessarily intertwined. If the trading laws were relaxed, or abolished, I think you'd still have a tough time arguing that Sunday is "just like any other day" thanks to centuries of religious tradition.

I didn't get extra for working sundays in the days before the Sunday trading rules (as they are now) were introduced. Back then it was illegal to be open at all. However, when the rules came in, for some reason B&Q put all their sunday only staff on a rate that was time and a half of the previous rate, presumably to compensate for the fact that working a five hour day was a pain in the arse, and people would drop it if they were worse off.

Brilliantly, this rate then applied to all hours that I worked as my contract was a Sunday contract + added hours, which meant that on the other 9 hours of my contract (weekday evenings) I was on an hourly rate higher than my supervisors.

One and a half pay on Sundays turned my "shitty part-time Student job" into something a lot less shitty. It was great. Especially good was starting early on a Sunday, hours before the shop opened, so no customers to bother you (and only one manager as well). Taking the Sunday morning bread delivery whilst massively hungover on £9-odd an hour was pretty good!

I've never worked out why it is that smaller shops can stay open later (which proved bloody handy yesterday when I ran out of potatoes while cooking and had to dash to my nearest Co-op convenience store, open until 10pm) but larger ones can't.

Have you ever worked for <insert SuperMegaGlobalCorp here>? If some bean counter can spot an idea for saving a few quid, the guys on the floor can't do a thing about it. Especially in this economy, Hell, they are already using unpaid staff and "apprentices" to dodge the minimum wage.

As for no-one arguing Sunday is Special.



Ta and indeed, da.

I don't understand it either. I imagine it's the relevant people "pushing" the law as far as it can possibly go without angering the God-loving folk. They're the only reason the laws exist at all.

Until schools are 7 days a week, then there will always be something different about the weekend.

Malc

To give small shops a chance. Local grocery stores were always exempt, and when supermarkets came in, everyone feared they would be wiped out. Based on square footage, I think.

Whoever in Tesco spotted they could drive petrol stations out of business and snap up the empty building for a Tesco Express is a genius. An evil genius, but still a genius.

I can't understand why most stuff doesn't open on weekends, like banks or post offices. If people are willing to work it, and the business can make money, then open all the rest of the time as well.

It's something like 3763 square feet from the top of my head.

EDIT: 3014

Indeed. And I've been shopping in supermarkets open at 10am on Sundays, so all of the staff have been there. Only difference has been we were told we couldn’t go to the tills until 11.

I go to the big Tesco in Cardiff (Western Ave) and in spite of being a '24 hour' store it closes about 10 or 11 something on a Friday, is open silly Sunday hours and then doesn't reopen again until 6am Monday. When our shifts changed I discovered this as the placed still looks open at 5:30am on a Monday (when I would stop on my way to work to buy lunch-making stuff) but they won't let you in. Even though when it IS open 24 hours a day later in the week and you go in at 5am, you're dodging floor scrubbers, shelf stackers and all the other stuff.

Pretty sure it's religious - nothing to do with Europe. Based on my not-checking-facts knowledge, anyway.

It's our very own little bit of Iran!

My local Tesco is huge, the place is open 24 hours a day in the week, until midnight on Saturday and then the normal Sunday hours.

Sunday shopping is shite, just like going at odd times like 1am in the week. They generaly have no decent fresh produce left until the next day when the deliverys come in.

Not sure what to think about the staff and all day Sunday opening. I would think that my local Tesco runs just about 24\7 with people in there doing stuff. Its so big it must have to with the hours it opens.

If you work on Sundays in the Hebrides they'll burn you in a big wooden man though.

My Grandad (originally from Portree on Skye) wouldn't even spend money on a Sunday, as that was making other people work.

Malc

Define people, though. There's always someone out there desperate enough to accept any old shitty conditions.

I take a people > stuff angle on it and reckon they should shut everything except pubs and kite shops and really nice restaurants.

I'm not sure I'd say many folk in restaurants have a better time of it than, say, people working in a retail outlet.

Nor am I