Path: utzoo!attcan!lsuc!tmsoft!torsqnt!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!db.toronto.edu!jdd
From: jdd@db.toronto.edu (John DiMarco)
Newsgroups: ont.general
Subject: Re: Sunday shopping
Message-ID: <1989Dec21.151446.8463@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Date: 21 Dec 89 20:14:47 GMT
References: <89Dec20.141047est.2233@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
Distribution: ont
Lines: 55

If Sunday shopping is permitted, it will happen, because both consumers and
retailers want it.

But Sunday shopping will mean that workers in the retail sector will not
get a day off in COMMON with the rest of society. Families and friends will
no longer have a common day off to do things together.

Q: What about all those (doctors, police, firefighters, waiters, chefs, etc.)
   who already work Sundays? 
		- unfortunately, those who currently work Sundays don't have a day off
		  in common with everybody else. But because working on Sunday is
		  generally restricted to those jobs which are necessary, this problem
		  is minimized. Right now, MOST people have Sunday off. 

Q: Why not guarantee workers the right not to work on Sunday? 
		- This is very difficult to do. Economic pressures will force 
		  businesses to pressure their employees to work on Sunday. Quite
		  frankly, if a store does lots of business on Sundays, an employee
		  is not as valuable to that store if he/she doesn't wish to work
		  on Sundays. Such an employee will be less likely to be hired,
		  promoted, or retained in an economic downslump, law or no law.
		  The net result will be that employees will work on Sunday anyways.

Q: Isn't banning Sunday shopping discrimination in favour of Christianity?
		- Having a common day of rest is an important thing regardless
		  of Christianity's teachings or any other religion. It is true
		  that Christianity determines (in Canada) WHICH day of the week 
		  will be this common day of rest, but that simply is a function 
		  of the fact that Christianity is the dominant religion in Canada.
          If Judaism were Canada's dominant religion, Saturday would be the 
		  common day of rest. 
			If we're going to have a common day of rest in this country, why
		  not make it coincide with the day of rest of the most prevalent
		  religion?

Q: What's so bad about not having a common day of rest? 
		- It'll make things more difficult for people to do things together
		  outside of their place of work. If person A works Monday to Saturday, 
		  and person B works Tuesday to Sunday, they'll not be able to do 
		  anything together which requires a shared day off. If person A
		  and person B are in the same family, their family life will suffer.
		  If person A and person B are friends, their friendship will suffer.
		  This kind of suffering is hard to put a price tag on, but it
		  is potentially very serious.

I know being able to shop on Sundays is tempting to those of us who do not
work on Sundays. But think of those who will have to work on Sundays to
provide us with that freedom. Perhaps some day you'll want to share a day
off with one such person....

John 
--
John DiMarco                   jdd@db.toronto.edu or jdd@db.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto, CSRI    BITNET: jdd%db.toronto.edu@relay.cs.net
(416) 978-8609                 UUCP: {uunet!utai,decvax!utcsri}!db!jdd