Retail workers urge no vote on Easter Trading

Media Release: National Distribution Union
Wednesday December 9, 2009.

Retail workers urge no vote on Easter Trading today

Retail workers are urging Members of Parliament to exercise their conscience votes in favour of family and community life and not commerce, when they vote on a Bill aimed at opening shops on Easter Sunday later today.

Margaret Dornan, a worker at Farmers and Vice President of the National Distribution Union said that retail workers already have very little family time, and this Bill would make it worse.

“You’ve only got 3 and 1/2 days a year when shops aren’t open,” she said.

“Speaking to other retail workers yesterday about this issue, they all asked when they were supposed to get some time off with their family, if shops opened over Easter.”

Margaret said that it was a sense of ‘here we go again’ for retail workers, after 7 attempts in Parliament in recent years to open shops at Easter, and questioned why money and profit should be put before family time and religious observance.

National MP Todd McClay’s Bill, which hands power to councils to decide whether shops in the area should trade on Easter Sunday met with opposition from some Councils last time it was debated in 2007, in addition to resistance from churches, unions and community organisations.

Parliament has voted down 7 bills to open shops on Good Friday and Easter Sunday since 1996.

ENDS

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