Should all shops be closed on Boxing Day?

barbiedoll

divadee wrote: »

I would like all retail shops to close on Boxing Day and it just be essential services that are open.

I may be old fashioned for my age (40) but I don't go shopping on Boxing Day. I refuse too. I have worked in retail and have family who still work in retail and the pressure they are put under to work Boxing Day is extreme. People say that they are queuing up for the overtime I have never seen. I have seen it go to names in a hat as no one wanted to work Boxing Day but they needed staff and that was the only fair way of doing it.

One year they said staff members with children wouldn't have to work but everyone else would and all hell broke loose. Why should people with children take priority of family time over a couple or a single person spending time with their family.

It's for 2 days. That's all. The world won't end if the shops are shut for 3 days.

At a push I think a compromise of 11-4 opening hours. But I personally would like a full ban on opening on Boxing Day. And before people say 'what if people don't celebrate Christmas'. If I go to another country and a special or religious occasion is on and there shops are closed I don't kick off saying 'but I don't celebrate xyz so why aren't they shops open'. In this country we predominantly celebrate Christmas so we should have family time just for 2 days.

I agree with this post wholeheartedly! All this talk of people having to starve because they can't work in a shop on Boxing Day, is absurd. Boxing Day is a public (Bank) holiday, just like Easter Monday....I haven't heard of anyone starving because they can't work on that day.

Everyone says that Christmas is commercial for most of us, not religious. Maybe they should stop worshipping at the altar of retail for a couple of days, and donate the time/cash that they would have spent, on a better cause. Visit an older person who has no family. Volunteer to help clean up a local beauty spot. Take your kids out for a walk to get them to appreciate that the best things in life can't be picked out of the Argos catalogue.

I've worked in retail and I've worked on Boxing Day. I was absolutely horrified at the sight of people pushing and shoving to buy yet more stuff, that they probably neither needed nor even really wanted. The consumerist society that we have fallen into makes me sick, we're ruining our homes, our environment and the global economy by endlessly spending money that we don't have, on rubbish that we don't need.

An extra day off from that can only be a good thing if you ask me.

nwc389

MSE_Andrea wrote: »

Me too! I was young but it felt quite groundbreaking at the time that shops were going to be open over Christmas!

Are there any shop workers reading this who were working those few years and remember it changing? How did you feel about it?

If you worked for a big retailer over those years it would be great to hear what you thought

I didn't work in retail but I clearly remember just a few years ago being in Morrisons doing my shopping on the morning the staff had been told they were opening on Boxing Day for the first time . To say they were devastated would not begin to describe the atmosphere in store that day , can't say I blame them .

Soworried

I work in large retail. I'll be working from 7am Boxing day morning for only the second year. I'm not happy about it but I get to vote with my feet. I love my job so for me I've made the decision to stay.

I think it's crazy that people want to legislate against the right to choose.
A company can currently choose whether to open and an employee can currently choose whether to work for an employer that expects people to work Boxing day, Sundays etc.
Customers and consumers get to choose if they wish to shop or not.

The nanny state shouldn't come in to it.

Kim_kim

Soworried wrote: »

an employee can currently choose whether to work for an employer that expects people to work Boxing day, Sundays etc..

I don't think the staff have a choice.
I agree the employer & the customer do.

queengoth

This subject sends me into a rant! Warning you may want to look away now. My parents had a pubs from 1974 until the late 1990's the same people who sat around saying that everything should be closed an Christmas Day would have been horrified to find the pub shut. I suspect the same would happen on Boxing Day. Why are only retail staff entitled to Christmas off? What about the emergency services , and the bods who make sure the power and water stays on ? If you want people to spend more time with the family, shorten the times places stay open, I don't remember ever having to go out and buy a cabbage at 9pm while I was growing up, I never died because I couldn't buy shoes on a Sunday. Why does everything need to be 24/7. My dad always said if a man has £10 to spend then it doesn't matter if the pub is open 3 hours or 24 he can still only spend the same £10. Opening longer doesn't mean more revenue just higher prices for heating, lighting and staffing .

Spendless

I do go shopping on boxing day in the sales. I have previously worked in retail both working on this day and the times before the stores opened.

We all have our own 'bugbears' with when we get time off from our jobs. Working Mon-Fri full-time, mine is that medical appointments (drs/dentist/hospital) are usually during this time and unable to work an alternative day instead, if I can't set the appt for begining/end of day and make the time up, I have to use annual leave. I had to do the same when kids were younger for school events.This is something that is not as likely to affect retail workers who often get a midweek day off and can perhaps swap a day with a colleague. So yes, I do like my additional bank holiday time to shop if that's what I wish to do.

I see no reason for the shops to be open at silly O'Clock though. Putting them in line with Sunday hours would be sensible IMO.

PenguinOfDeath

Person_one wrote: »

That sounds like a reasonable compromise, so clearly it won't happen!

As for online, I don't see why websites can't be up and running but not offering same or next day delivery etc. That's what used to happen on Bank Holidays, Sundays, Christmas and so on isn't it? You could place your order and pay as that was all automated but your order wouldn't be dealt with until the next working day.

Someone needs to be working (if even on call) to ensure your order can be placed though!


Nice idea but here would it stop? Just going off comments on this thread...football staff, stewards, theatre ushers and bar workers, hotel workers cleaners. Would all have to work. No we don't need to make purchases on boxing day but what do we need to do

Marvel1

Plenty of people work boxing day:
TV crew
Care home assistants
Steel workers
Emergency services
Pubs

This is just to name a few so shops being open makes no difference. Do I shop on boxing day? No chance.

catkins

AylesburyDuck wrote: »

I didnt sign the petition,
Whilst i agree Christmas is a family time i also feel people should have the right to work if they wish, which unfortunately this would be taken away from them should a law be passed.
Some people work overtime at this time of year purely to pay off Christmas/winter expenses, i am not signing something that would take this away from them.

If shop workers really did "have the right to work if they wish" ok but they don't get their wish in most cases do they? When I worked in retail I worked every Christmas Eve and every Boxing day. Christmas Eve we would have to work longer to get ready for the sale - at least 3 hours longer than normal. Then Boxing Day we would get hardly any customers and most of the ones we did get wanted refunds so we didn't exactly take a lot of money. One year we refunded more money than we took in! All the staff would just be thinking they could be at home with their families.

It also meant that I had to make sure I didn't get to bed too late on Christmas Day to ensure I would get up ok. I would have to leave my family long before anyone else.

All my family are together Christmas Day and Boxing Day but I always had to miss out on Boxing Day.

Also no buses on Boxing Day meant if OH could not give me a lift I had to pay to get a taxi there and back so leaving me out of pocket. Of course no extra money either for working just a normal day of wonderful minimum wage.

mjm3346 wrote: »

Christmas is not "Family time" it's a "commercial occasion", cards, presents, decorations, panto etc are all commercial.

Shops should be able to open for as long as they want whenever they want, certainly not be subject to restrictions based on the very small minority who actually celebrate Christmas as a non-commercial occasion.

For lots of people Christmas IS family time. It certainly is for me and my family. We spent every Christmas Day and Boxing Day together for almost 50 years and then I started working in retail - only because I could not do the job I did part time and that was the only other work I could find. I then had several years of missing out until I decided to stop working totally

Unless every shop assistant that has to work is happy to do so then shops should not be open. Can people really not cope with shops being closed for 2 days? It's sad enough that they are open on Sundays

catkins

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

Shops should be free to open when they want, including Boxing day and all 24 hours of Sunday, not the ridiculous situation that England & Wales has at the moment on Sundays where I can't nip down the supermarket at 6pm as I realise I've run out of an ingredient for the evening meal.

The Boxing day sales aren't important to me, but arbitary restrictions on opening times based on a particular religious faith, in a country that has the right to freedom of religion (including the right to have no religion at all) protected, seems illogical.

No they should not be free to open when they want. I know I never wanted to work Sundays or bank holidays and neither did probably 95% of the people I worked with.

If people can't plan well enough to make sure they have what they need that is their problem. People manage in lots of parts of Europe with shops closing on Sundays and bank holidays and having a half day closing in the week. The British seem to want to worship shops as their God.

Bogalot wrote: »

I used to do a 6 hour shift on Christmas morning and on Boxing Day. Those two shifts at double time would cover the whole of my Christmas expenses.

Govt (and other people) should not try to dictate when people work (and I agree on the comments about Sundays too).

Well lucky you to get double time because now people don't get a penny extra. At least no one I know that works in retail does. Why should shop workers be forced to work a day most of them do not want to just so sad people can go shopping?