Sunday Opening hours

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Sunday working not great if you are on a zero hours contract and have to hang around whilst it's quiet not getting paid - waiting for when you might be needed. And so you can walk away from a Sunday having not done any hours and completely lost the day with family and friends.

 

[CheltenhamHacker]

Sunday working not great if you are on a zero hours contract and have to hang around whilst it's quiet not getting paid - waiting for when you might be needed. And so you can walk away from a Sunday having not done any hours and completely lost the day with family and friends.

Hang around? I've a different experience of zero hour contracts admittedly (yours being from your son I believe?) but mine was a case of getting a call each week saying "can you do X or Y" and I could say yes or no.

That sounds like a very strange arrangement....

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Hang around? I've a different experience of zero hour contracts admittedly (yours being from your son I believe?) but mine was a case of getting a call each week saying "can you do X or Y" and I could say yes or no.

That sounds like a very strange arrangement....

...and one I heard someone else describe on a phone-in yesterday. Told to stand down as they were quiet and to hang around until they were needed - unpaid whilst they hung around. Or go home and miss out. Might suit some folks but it's really not a good way for folks to try and earn a living.

 

[CheltenhamHacker]

...and one I heard someone else describe on a phone-in yesterday. Told to stand down as they were quiet and to hang around until they were needed - unpaid whilst they hung around. Or go home and miss out. Might suit some folks but it's really not a good way for folks to try and earn a living.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not at all disagreeing that it happens. i do think it's fairly rare though (but that could also be me not having come across it). I do deal with a lot of companies though, which slightly support my view it's rare (to an extent).

Happy to be corrected though!

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Don't get me wrong, i'm not at all disagreeing that it happens. i do think it's fairly rare though (but that could also be me not having come across it). I do deal with a lot of companies though, which slightly support my view it's rare (to an extent).

Happy to be corrected though!

Maybe doesn't happen much - I don't know. But for sure zero hours contracts don't exactly help those on them start to build a pension fund - especially as employers can manipulate things so that works don't earn enough and so the employer doesn't have to auto-enroll the worker into a Qualifying Workplace Pension Scheme. The are unscrupulous employer out there might pressurise workers to not apply to be enrolled - perhaps by suggesting that they might not get much in the way of hours to work for instance.

All rather counter to Government wishes for all to start building up a pension pot - however little. But that is a ZHC debate and not really to do with Sunday trading - though indirectly it is.

 

[Bunkermagnet]

It's not just retail thats ultimately affected, but anything customer facing, then in the end support systems. Simple answer to Sunday trading is would you accept having to work a Sunday and get another day off instead? That is the general reality of it all.

 

[Smiffy]

Simple answer to Sunday trading is would you accept having to work a Sunday and get another day off instead? That is the general reality of it all.

I get Wednesdays off for working every Saturday and one in three Sundays.
Fine if your Missus isn't working full time, but unfortunately mine is, so she gets to see very little of me.
She doesn't complain though.

 

[Fish]

My previous retail businesses were open 7-days a week, we had to open to compete, Saturday's & Sunday's would be our best days, Saturdays were good for volume sales at good margins but Sunday's matched that revenue with more high value products being bought but the footfall was much less, Saturday's were mainly single (on their own) shoppers and Sunday's we would see family's buying high end products.

All my staff were paid based on a rolling contractual 6-day week so they would always get 2 different days off, it also stated in their contract of employment that flexibility was essential to meet the needs of the business, which they were happy with and it worked.

 

[GB72]

That is a good point Fish. If I am going to pay are bit more on the high street for a big ticket item I want service, advice, time etc and you cannot get that during the Saturday madness and you have made me realise I do this sort of shopping in a Sunday