The shopworkers’ union USDAW wants to keep strict regulation of supermarket Sunday opening hours because “Sunday is special”. I assume they must have agreed with David Cameron who gave a speech at Easter pointing out, not for the first time, that this is a Christian country. There may be differing views about the meaning and accuracy of this sentiment, but there can be no rational argument, surely, for shutting down facilities on Sunday, especially when there is no consistent attitude to what should be operating on Sunday and what should not. I have blogged about this before (20 March 2012), when it was decided that shops could stay open on Sunday for longer during the Olympics. And I was reminded of the illogicality of it all recently when a friend was taken to hospital on a Friday, only to find that the diagnostic machine urgently needed would simply not be available until Monday morning. Nothing seemed to happen in hospital over the weekend apart from the most basic care from the appropriately named “skeleton” staff. With another visitor looking for the same ward we wandered along empty corridors, calling out “is anybody there?” Reception at the main entry was unmanned. No wonder the waiting time is so long if everything has to be fitted into a five-day week when it could be spread over seven days. Expensive state-of-the art machines are lying idle for two days out of 7, and that proportion of their cost is therefore going to waste. Sometimes the machines were funded by the local community’s contributions, in the expectation that they would alleviate the pressure on hospital equipment, not that they would have restricted use.
And despite all the admonitions about healthy food, the hospital menu was a classic of poor diet, with pasties, macaroni cheese and ham sandwiches on offer. Apparently the only edible choice was the hallal selection of curries. I noticed staff clutching bottles of coke and crisps in the lifts. So don’t get ill at the weekend and take your own food.
Now this is an issue which drives me to despair.
First of all the constant hammering by the peculiar people who have managed to get themselves into some kind of mouthpiece position, that proves they so dislike the UK culture and way of life they are hell bent of eliminating altogether. So much so, they forever find ways to seek reason to insult it. And they are doing it to the extent that it is out of all recognition of itself. What is with these people? And how is it they manage to set themselves up as a mouthpiece for all of us who happen to like the way of life we had before their interference?
On this issue, Cameron, for once, is right, we are a Christian country. And please remember I’m not a practicing anything. But, the organised idea of a once a week break from the pounding, overbearing mind game of ‘you must be at work for the ruling classes 24/7 if you are to be considered worthy of life at all’ has outlived it’s sell by date. There is no such thought any longer of quality of life. And that quality of life is not somehow connected to being a relentless workhorse combined consuming machine. So, I feel we must ‘immediately’ return to the days of ‘no work on Sunday’ as a designated good day for the mainstream population to enjoy a day of rest. Christian or otherwise. The fanatical American idea, or, is it Scandinavian notion, that keeping to tradition is some kind of inequality or a rejection and that we should ‘change’ from that notion in order to be accepting of invasion, by all forms of alternative cultural practices, in order to make this land fair to those who want to park themselves here. Even when they find it goes against our history and satisfaction of practice to their idea of what we must turn into. Try doing that elsewhere and witness the unrest it would create in say, Israel or Saudi Arabia to give two examples.
So a return to our own preferred practice would bring a great sense of relief so desperately needed by this host culture. Along with huge signs on entry advising that if you don’t like the British way of life, don’t make an application to reside here.
Next, the issue of ‘some’ jobs being so important and necessary to the maintenance of life for the nation, that they must accept a need to regulate on a 24/7 basis. Shifts to work around the clock are not rocket science and it worked well for all those who were needed to do this before the crazed take over of the PC brigade. Policemen, firemen, doctors, nurses and life givers of all kinds must be ready to take on shift work. The NHS being one of those very important practices as is transport and utility workers. Note this will not include keeping shops or supermarkets open day and night or any other ludicrously unnecessary practice to keep the greedy relaxed on their yachts in order to make sure they don’t have to give up their day of rest. Leisure and family connection is as important to the proletariat as it is to the arrogant jet setters, if not more so.
Therefore on this issue the unions are right. And more power to them. What they have to do is get as far away from politically correct quangoism as they can and centre on the men and women who pay their wages and want to see value for money, or else, they, like many politicians will find themselves out of work and on the bread line.
So Maude, does the traditional British way of like you enthuse about also include women not working and staying at home as housewives? Because that’s the other side of the equation that’s necessary if you want shops and services to stick to traditional hours. Then the wives can do the shopping during the daytime, go to the post office, the bank, while the husbands are at work.
Take for example my local Royal Mail delivery office. If a normal working person needs to collect a parcel, they can’t do so during the week. Fortunately it is open 9-12 on Saturday morning, but these days the queue snakes out of the door and down the street. Anyone collecting a parcel loses a good part of their Saturday morning. Why not keep the office open on Saturday afternoon, or even open on Sunday? Same goes for the post office itself, and the banks. Or perhaps you think the men should send their wives to collect the parcel during the week?
It has nothing to do with corporate greed, it’s just a necessary part of the modernisation of society. You may consider this aspect of it to be not ideal, but you must admit changes such as the equality of women are hugely positive, and ones I feel a 24 hour society is a price worth paying for.
Well, Jonathan,
I’m so pleased to know you like the hours that slavery offers others, but, I’m not so sure they like it much, or that it is good for the health of the nation. which encompasses more than simply you.
And as you are assuming it’s women who will have to collect the mail, because they are going to be home all week as the shops are shut on a Sunday, and you don’t like that idea, I suggest you join me in pushing for a female referendum and ask women directly what they would like in a world of their choosing. Now that would be modernisation wouldn’t it? Imagine, women in the happy position of real choice. What a truly radical thinking for the twenty first century. My goodness, how far we have come.
http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-a-z/W/work-life-balance/
And as a PS, I, like you, don’t feel sad for your plight, just the same way you feel no sadness at the plight of others. I’m not a champion of big business, so will leave that to their numerous gladiators, as they get paid plenty for it.
Maude,
I don’t see the bosses on their yachts pushing for this! Having supermarkets open full hours on Sundays isn’t likely to result in much more spending, just spreading it over a longer time. Supermarkets will end up having to all open all day (or lose out to competitors), pay staff for longer hours, take about the same amount of money and make less profit.
It is ordinary people, like me, who want the flexibility of longer hours at weekends, so that we can enjoy our “day of leisure” without having to interrupt it to go shopping just as we are trying to be on the beach, going for a walk, playing sport, relaxing in the garden or whatever else we like to do with our families on Sundays.
You, Graham, are not making any sense. If they all close on Sunday, then there are no competitors to take on.
And, ordinary people like you, who want the flexibility of longer hours at weekends, so that you can enjoy your day of leisure will be well satisfied, won’t it? No chance of having to spoil it as none of the awful places will be able to accommodate you, so the shopping will be done in a normal week. Or, are you telling me you don’t have a fridge? Not only that, others of your ilk will also be free to enjoy their day at the beach along with you. Imagine the heavenly freedom of it.
Or, are you suggesting that the next move should be the 24 store that stands empty throughout the night, as it has to stay open for the one cookie freak that has to fill his need at three a/m in the morning? And look at the saving on electricity, petrol and every other aspect of the twenty four hour shopping convenience. Not only that, it will save those supermarket owners the cost of having to foot that wage and utility bill as well. What a move forward for us all it would be to have one day a week where we can truly relax.
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_week/
And in France where the labour laws are civilised.
http://www.expatica.com/fr/employment/employment_information/French-labour-laws_-Working-time-and-leave_16106.html
i do wonder why the British allow these employers to abuse them the way they do? Odd really in a land where people fought for their civil rights the way they did for so long.
Sometimes it seems that Sunday openings and closings are designed to suit men and not women. So pubs, sport, garden centres, betting shops, DIY are open; fashion shops, doctors, dentists, post offices, jobcentres, hairdressers, dry cleaners, banks, generally not. Museums and galleries are open but libraries are not. Everyone takes it for granted that transport will be available all day Sunday, along with radio and TV, police, cinemas (but not theatres), restaurants, petrol stations, and that all our utilities will be maintained. I don’t see the logic.
So women don’t garden and men don’t go to the bank? As for fashion shops, that surely depends on the owners/managers (and I suppose footfall) for at least 6 hours depending on size. Opticians seem to increasingly open on Sundays… However, I wholeheartedly agree with the NHS point.
One quick thought on radio and TV being expected on Sundays. Generally these are prerecorded as at Christmas. However, the minions are expected to be on the job all the hours God sends, but not the top drawer, they seem to have endless time off. Funny that.
Baroness Deech,
By whatever accident or plan the laws you discuss are called Blue Laws in my country. In Louisiana and most jurisdictions they have been repealed in my lifetime. But the remark made my those espousing your point of view may interest you. The exact wording varied but people said, “How sacred a legal regime can it be that allows one to get drunk but requires the same person to remain nude?” Retail on Sunday may not be so kind to some but it does produce a rush of low-level employment for a year or so after being authorized.
You “don’t see the logic” ?
Perhaps there is more than your stipulative kind of ‘logic’ to be perceived ?
and to need (your) comprehension ?
“And did those feet…walk upon England’s green and pleasant Land ?”
Mmm – certainly many and contrasting “feet” have,
do, and will, walk upon this Land; yet the “Christian” minority among those feet is multi-sected, and at odds therein with its Very-Self, in addition to being at odds with all other kinds of feet.
And where is the real-life-new
[and more affordably and equably sustainworthy than the burgeonly-domineering “Strength and Speed Gymnasium-Fightnessing” of the Cameronian Big (but Broken even on Sundays) Society]
Individual-Sensory-Self-Awarenessing, and of BodyMind Knowledge & Know-how,
which is quite distinct from, and more life-effective than, the newly up-and-going Oxfordian-academic “Mindfulnesses (mind-over-body) and meditationisms”,
where is Corpore-Sana as the pre-essential for mens sano to be found in “our” English-speaking civilisation ?
and pointedly here in this pew-confined, hobbled-within-top-down-directive-theology-and-authoritarianism, “Christian Country” and its “traditions” that are turning out increasingly to be “wrong habits that feel right” [Eric Franklin]
where is holisticly basic-health-improvement, and longest-term-sustainworthy wellbeing-building, to be found in the British Isles, even just on a Sunday ?
[and there is more, oh so much and so complexified more,
not just awry in both the NHS and the overarching UK Division of Powers Constitution & Legislatures,
but scrutiny-neglected and dangerously-malfeasant)
—————–
Closingly therefore,
surely, baroness, you should have ensured a comma, to give us less-brainy folk,who nonetheless are still attempting to improve our respective walkingnesses down here upon England’s green and pleasant land itself, some better adequate insightful sense between “don’t get ill at the weekend” and “take your own food (if you go to any hospital)” ?
And please remember I’m not a practicing anything. but CofE nonetheless, the only holy day of obligation being Xmas Eve, Maude.
I was an honorary member of USDAW, for some time, so I get all my clops at the Coop. The very heavy use of motor vehicles to give people their “freedom” entails a much greater use of the High streets, parking spaces of suermarkets, and an extra day as it was eventually decided, has been very well thought out.
I was LDOS (Lords Day Observance to start off with, when Tesco and one or two others strating camaigning for Sunday opening. Its not just Sundays; it is pubs open at all time, which is really even more contraversial and lobbied for by the Big pub owning corporations so that they could install managers in pubs instead of tenants. Ther’s a new breed of managers now, which may be no bad thing when you recall the desperate alcoholism of the tenant fallen on hard times, and threatnened by the lock up and bancruptcy, by unscrupulous
landlords.
I think that sunday opening works very well, the change was a good one. The shopworkers may not all get double time. They probably do get time and a half. They may have to agree when they are first employed, to work on any one of the seven days of the work, for the basic wage, but Sunday really still is easier than most of the other days, depending on the neighbourhood.
I really like the Baroness’ humour …about her experiences “wandering the corridors calling ‘is anybody here?'” Ha!Ha!Ha!
A+E is notoriously open on Friday and Saturday nights. Where would we be were they not, but the other 1.3m employees of the NHS do rather less at the Weekend.
I favour the conservative approach now, not to change anything that is working ok. I’m all for treating the Shop workers well though.
If you want to pray, go pray.