Should Sunday trading restrictions be lifted?

trent7176 · 25 March 2012 at 5:35AM

PDWright wrote: »

With respect, what do you know of a doctors salary?
The starting salary of a junior doctor is ~£26,000. (type "Pay for doctors" into Google). And that's after 5 - 6 years at university and £30k+ debt. Working 60 hours a week, which is not common now but was when I started, works out around £9 an hour. If I'm working boxing day, therefore, I'm earning less than someone working double time at Tesco. Please don't assume that I'm seeing this discussion with the rose-tinted glasses of a high wage.

I don't really understand your second point about the jobs I mention being low-paid. I agree, those I mention do tend to be low paid. But the point I was making, which I think still stands, is that bar, restaurant, leisure staff etc work Sundays without restricted opening hours. They do it for pay probably equivalent to retail staff. What makes the staff of retailers with floorspace over 280 m2 any more entitled to restricted Sunday hours than all the equally low paid staff I mentioned and, indeed, the staff of retailers with floor space below 280 m2???

Pay really has nothing to do with it. There seems no reason to restrict larger stores' hours on a Sunday. People say religion or tradition but they don't mind that their local co-op is open Sunday morning when they've run out of milk...

Pay has everything to do with it. Pay me good money and I will work longer and harder. Type "average uk doctors salary" into Google and in 2007 it was 110000 pounds a year. Five years on and it is a good sight higher.

PDWright · 26 March 2012 at 12:36AM

trent7176 wrote: »

Pay has everything to do with it. Pay me good money and I will work longer and harder. Type "average uk doctors salary" into Google and in 2007 it was 110000 pounds a year. Five years on and it is a good sight higher.

With all due respect, I don't think you understood my points.

This is a discussion about Sunday trading laws and not about pay levels of various jobs.

My first point was in response to your statement about the salary of a doctor which seemed to suggest that my views were irrelevant as I earn more than the average retail worker.
Whilst this is true now, I wanted to make it clear that for several years of my early career, I worked 60 hour weeks at any time of the day, night, Sunday, bank holiday for pay that was often less than the double time earnt by some retail staff on bank holidays and/or Sundays.

My major point, however, which you don't seem to have recognised, is not about pay. Sunday trading laws limit the opening hours of stores over 280 m2, and only those stores.
Bar workers, restaurant workers, leisure workers, workers in smaller stores, delivery drivers, rail/bus/tube drivers, power station workers. These people all work unrestricted hours on a Sunday, and many of them for low wages similar to workers in the stores affected by the law.
Your argument was that workers deserve in some way the time off on Sundays, possibly because of the lower wages. My point is, why are those people affected by the laws more deserving of time off than those working for similar wages all hours of a Sunday already..?

On the subject of my salary, please don't believe everything you read on the internet. Whilst some GPs and senior consultants can earn £250k plus, this is not their salary. This includes huge sums from private work and overtime. The salary of a doctor can rarely exceed £100k and mine certainly does not. Please see
w w w.nhscareers.nhs.uk/details/Default.aspx?Id=553 (remove spaces)

Omniscient · 27 March 2012 at 11:17PM

I'm a Christian (Catholic) and think Sunday should be like any other day.

Sunday trading laws are totally unnecessary, they are 19th century ideology being imposed on the 21st century public.

Even if religious shoppers do not wish to work or shop on their respective days of worship, should everyone else be disadvantaged? There are plenty of people who will (and need to) work the additional hours.

All the arguments against it are misleading or untrue; NOBODY is forced to work ANY day of the week, and introducing full Sunday trading wont change that.

Why should Sunday be 'family day' just because of a 2000 year old religion? I prefer Wednesday to be honest :-)

People need jobs, and freeing up 18(?) hours a week of work will immediately result in increased employment and economic growth, albeit slight.

Old people, grow up. This is the 21st century.

vchidzey · 28 March 2012 at 1:09PM

DaybreakGirl wrote: »

I am sick to death of this, Sunday Trading should be stopped everywhere, including the garages and small corner shops. There is plenty of time to go shopping Monday to Saturday. Family time should be Sunday and this forcing of people to have to work Sundays should stop it is unacceptable. I am not religious so it is not down to that.

i agree completely,we managed b4 shops oened on sundays,it used to b nice going window shopping on a sunny sunday afternoon!