Peter Morton writes:
This week
Tory ministers will try to push through changes to Sunday Trading that could have big consequences for
local shops and for people who work at supermarkets.
Not too many people noticed the plans
to let councils set longer Sunday opening hours and perhaps that’s how the
Tories would like it.
Why? Because these changes could
mean shop workers seeing their children less and fearing that they would be
pressed by bosses to work longer hours.
One corner shop owner has already told The Mirror that he
feels, “these daft and scary plans will kill the livelihoods of
independent retailers”.
A couple of months ago I went to
a meeting where shop workers told their stories about working on Sundays, and
why they don’t want the law changes to go through.
They spoke movingly about it being their one chance in
the week to see families, and a feeling that they are being pressured into
working on Sundays already.
Shopworkers have told USDAW,
their trade union, in detail about what Sunday Trading means to them.
One said: “I have a disabled
daughter and am a single parent. The pressure of working weekends and arranging
suitable care is extremely difficult.”
Others talked about the
difficulty of finding childcare: “I would be unable to find childcare. I
already have to rely on family members to cover my Saturday shift!”
For those who are carers, two
thirds said that they find it hard to get alternative care for their loved ones
when they have to work on a Sunday.
Longer Sunday shifts would just make things
worse.
So this is another hit by the
Tories on working families on top of the bedroom tax and George Osborne’s
attack on tax credits last year.
But Sunday Trading changes are not too popular with
retailers either.
The boss of John Lewis has
opposed changes and the Association of Convenience Stores has called them
complicated, harmful and unnecessary.
Smaller shops depend on the business
they do on a Sunday and longer opening supermarket hours are a threat to their
livelihoods.
ASDA, owned by the American chain
Walmart, is one of the few stores that support the change.
So we have a Tory change to the
law that cuts away at the one day of the week many working families can be
together, that many of the big retailers oppose, and that could put small local
shops at risk.
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