Letters
Dear Christis,
I am writing in response to John Shuebridge’s article “Sin, Selling and Sundays”. I believe John is right in saying that a law which restricts Sunday trading is unjustified because it is an infringement of liberty. Indeed, I would go further and say that, like the blasphemy law, the SUnday trading law is racist since it discriminates between religions and, implicitly, between races. However, I think that the rest of John’s article is flawed, basically on two counts.
Firstly, a self-employed retailer would not have the choice whether or not to sell on Sundays if the Sunday trading law were abolished. THis is because the market (in which John obviously passionately believes) would forse that retailer to sell in order to compete with other retailers.
Secondly, John’s claim that, as he puts it, “exhortations” by Christians cannot affect sellers directly as they may not be trading through choice is simply not true. Christians can put pressure on employers through trade unions. Workers who do not wish to work on a Sunday can be protected through pressure from the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW). It is the government legislation which has weakened the trade unions over the last ten years which would prevent workers’ and Christians’ wishes being respected in this area.
The policies required as an alternative to a Sunday trading law, and as a promotion of workers’ rights generally would be the creation of more industrial democracy, job-sharing programmes, strengthening of trade unions and higher levels of social benefit. Such changes would give workers much greater freedom to decide when and for how long they work, while not denying people the choice to shop on whichever day of the week they choose.
Dave Ball