I used to work in a big four supermarket between 2000 and 2012, and a German discounter between 2014 and 2016. I agree that working in a supermarket on a Sunday is hellish, and I firmly believe that the main cause of the hellish-ness that retail colleagues experience on a Sunday is that the 30-year-old restrictions force the supermarkets and their customers to pack a full day's worth of trade into less than half a day. Allow the supermarkets to have a normal trading day on a Sunday and the customers will spread out across the day (at least to some extent), relieving at least some of the pressure on the middle part of the day, and therefore on the colleagues. In particular the retail colleagues would be spared the weekly aggro and abuse of trying to shut the entrance doors at 4pm whilst as many as 20 late-arriving customers are still trying to force the entrance doors back open, or are pushing their way in through the exit door and preventing the exiting customers from being able to leave. Ironically I suspect the main opposition to such a change might come from the supermarkets themselves, who would probably still take broadly the same amount of money in a big store on an unrestricted Sunday, but would now probably need to pay two shifts of colleagues to cover the day instead of just one shift. They might also lose some of the benefit they currently get from pre-10am and post-4pm sales of the slightly more expensively priced items in their convenience stores, since those could then just be bought at the normal price at the big store instead.
I do also agree with the idea that every colleague should be allowed a guaranteed day off each week, regardless of how many hours they work a week, or how flexible their shift patterns otherwise are, but it makes no sense whatsoever for everybody to have a right to get the same guaranteed day off. If the law were to be changed I would suggest that they make it so all retail colleagues get to nominate a day of the week they wish to guarantee to have off, which would be incorporated into their contract, and which it would then be a legal requirement that the retailer had to ensure the colleague never worked. Once a nominated day was agreed and enshrined in a colleague's contact then it could then only be changed if the colleague wished it to be changed, or if they at least actively agreed to the retailer's request that they change it, and the retailer could only make such a request, say, once a year or 6 months or something, so that the retailer couldn't simply make them change it every week to bypass the intentions of such a law. The retailer would admittedly also need some protections, to ensure they don't end up with a entire workforce all guaranteed to be off on the same day.
I live in Scotland which doesn't have these rules. And being in England on a Sunday feels like going back in time. (And I worked in retail on Sundays for 20+ years).
I came here to say "you wrote far too much stuff when you could just have said 'why don't you just look North at Scotland?'" and I'm glad that somebody beat me to the punch.
Aren't there still parts of Scotland (some of the islands, perhaps) where they still have far stricter Sunday trading laws? Like, maybe even the pubs can't open.
My slight conspiracy theory on this topic is that supermarkets don't actually want extended Sunday trading hours. If it existed, supermarkets would be competed into having longer Sunday opening hours or else lose sales. The status quo gets them similar sales but in fewer hours (since as a rule all shops choose similar Sunday hours). And that's my reason against Sunday trading regulations - they're uncompetitive.
I agree with Daniel's suspicion that longer supermarket opening could result in approximately the same amount of food being bought but with higher staffing costs and other overheads; that could lead to prices having to go up for all of us. But I appreciate his point about customers at closing time on Sundays — which for many people are one of the two most convenient days of the week for shopping.
James mentions independent shops and suggests that fancy specialist shops are more likely to be viable than independent grocery stores, but specialist shops don't tend to open on Sundays anyway, at least round here (because they are run by the owners, who want a day off), so they already lose out to Sunday shoppers.
The solution there is we allow full Sunday opening, but supermarkets have to close on Tuesdays.
That avoids the closing-rush on a busy weekend day, while avoiding increasing staffing costs, and it boosts independent boutique food shops by giving them a whole day on which they are open when the supermarkets aren't. Nobody really *needs* a supermarket on a Tuesday; you've had plenty of time to stock up at the weekend (or Monday if you've been away), and it isn't far enough into the week to need to top up. And if you do find yourself peckish on a Tuesday, treat yourself to a little artisan something or other. What's not to like?
After watching Chris Spargo's recent video on 24hr trading I'm not sure the big supermarkets would be particularly bothered by longer opening hours anyway.
Obviously as a good free-marketeer I should want to scrap the Sunday Trading Laws, but have always felt it is one of the things where wealthier people get more convenience while poorer shop workers lose out.
We could say the economy would benefit from cutting minimum annual leave, for example (it would!) but do we want to do that? I don't.
I think your 'repeal the Sunday trading laws but keep the protections for workers' position does feel the right place to land.
Though if the economy were doing a lot better, I'd feel a strong pull to going the other way, and tightening the restrictions back to European levels. There is real social value in having a day in which everyone in most families is not working. But accept the current compromise doesn't really achieve that in any meaningful way (it is a better argument for keeping strong restrictions for Christmas Day).
Agree with all of this. However, at 61, I do have an illogical nostalgia for childhood Sundays when nothing was open. To break the monotony, grandad took seven-year-old me to his local working men's club (which was open, work that one out). There's also a great song in the musical Blood Brothers which captures exactly what it was like.
"the annual freezing of fuel duty by the Chancellor of the Exchequer." Is very funny
I used to work in a big four supermarket between 2000 and 2012, and a German discounter between 2014 and 2016. I agree that working in a supermarket on a Sunday is hellish, and I firmly believe that the main cause of the hellish-ness that retail colleagues experience on a Sunday is that the 30-year-old restrictions force the supermarkets and their customers to pack a full day's worth of trade into less than half a day. Allow the supermarkets to have a normal trading day on a Sunday and the customers will spread out across the day (at least to some extent), relieving at least some of the pressure on the middle part of the day, and therefore on the colleagues. In particular the retail colleagues would be spared the weekly aggro and abuse of trying to shut the entrance doors at 4pm whilst as many as 20 late-arriving customers are still trying to force the entrance doors back open, or are pushing their way in through the exit door and preventing the exiting customers from being able to leave. Ironically I suspect the main opposition to such a change might come from the supermarkets themselves, who would probably still take broadly the same amount of money in a big store on an unrestricted Sunday, but would now probably need to pay two shifts of colleagues to cover the day instead of just one shift. They might also lose some of the benefit they currently get from pre-10am and post-4pm sales of the slightly more expensively priced items in their convenience stores, since those could then just be bought at the normal price at the big store instead.
I do also agree with the idea that every colleague should be allowed a guaranteed day off each week, regardless of how many hours they work a week, or how flexible their shift patterns otherwise are, but it makes no sense whatsoever for everybody to have a right to get the same guaranteed day off. If the law were to be changed I would suggest that they make it so all retail colleagues get to nominate a day of the week they wish to guarantee to have off, which would be incorporated into their contract, and which it would then be a legal requirement that the retailer had to ensure the colleague never worked. Once a nominated day was agreed and enshrined in a colleague's contact then it could then only be changed if the colleague wished it to be changed, or if they at least actively agreed to the retailer's request that they change it, and the retailer could only make such a request, say, once a year or 6 months or something, so that the retailer couldn't simply make them change it every week to bypass the intentions of such a law. The retailer would admittedly also need some protections, to ensure they don't end up with a entire workforce all guaranteed to be off on the same day.
I live in Scotland which doesn't have these rules. And being in England on a Sunday feels like going back in time. (And I worked in retail on Sundays for 20+ years).
I came here to say "you wrote far too much stuff when you could just have said 'why don't you just look North at Scotland?'" and I'm glad that somebody beat me to the punch.
Aren't there still parts of Scotland (some of the islands, perhaps) where they still have far stricter Sunday trading laws? Like, maybe even the pubs can't open.
Arguably, the convenience sized store count for Tesco is significantly higher than quoted.
There are the other "fascia" that Tesco has some financial engagement with (Tesco supplies a big part of the stock).
One-stop (mostly franchisee owned). Budgen's, Londis, Premier (all franchisee owned).
My slight conspiracy theory on this topic is that supermarkets don't actually want extended Sunday trading hours. If it existed, supermarkets would be competed into having longer Sunday opening hours or else lose sales. The status quo gets them similar sales but in fewer hours (since as a rule all shops choose similar Sunday hours). And that's my reason against Sunday trading regulations - they're uncompetitive.
argument extra true if you're like me and get your groceries delivered, on sunday, effectively at any time during the day.
I agree with Daniel's suspicion that longer supermarket opening could result in approximately the same amount of food being bought but with higher staffing costs and other overheads; that could lead to prices having to go up for all of us. But I appreciate his point about customers at closing time on Sundays — which for many people are one of the two most convenient days of the week for shopping.
James mentions independent shops and suggests that fancy specialist shops are more likely to be viable than independent grocery stores, but specialist shops don't tend to open on Sundays anyway, at least round here (because they are run by the owners, who want a day off), so they already lose out to Sunday shoppers.
The solution there is we allow full Sunday opening, but supermarkets have to close on Tuesdays.
That avoids the closing-rush on a busy weekend day, while avoiding increasing staffing costs, and it boosts independent boutique food shops by giving them a whole day on which they are open when the supermarkets aren't. Nobody really *needs* a supermarket on a Tuesday; you've had plenty of time to stock up at the weekend (or Monday if you've been away), and it isn't far enough into the week to need to top up. And if you do find yourself peckish on a Tuesday, treat yourself to a little artisan something or other. What's not to like?
After watching Chris Spargo's recent video on 24hr trading I'm not sure the big supermarkets would be particularly bothered by longer opening hours anyway.
I think there’s a big difference between footfall at 2am and potential footfall at 7pm on a Sunday!
Obviously as a good free-marketeer I should want to scrap the Sunday Trading Laws, but have always felt it is one of the things where wealthier people get more convenience while poorer shop workers lose out.
We could say the economy would benefit from cutting minimum annual leave, for example (it would!) but do we want to do that? I don't.
I think your 'repeal the Sunday trading laws but keep the protections for workers' position does feel the right place to land.
Though if the economy were doing a lot better, I'd feel a strong pull to going the other way, and tightening the restrictions back to European levels. There is real social value in having a day in which everyone in most families is not working. But accept the current compromise doesn't really achieve that in any meaningful way (it is a better argument for keeping strong restrictions for Christmas Day).
Agree with all of this. However, at 61, I do have an illogical nostalgia for childhood Sundays when nothing was open. To break the monotony, grandad took seven-year-old me to his local working men's club (which was open, work that one out). There's also a great song in the musical Blood Brothers which captures exactly what it was like.
I think you underestimate the support for Usdaw in the Labour party. I would vote against these changes.