Sunday-trading decisions cause worker concern

Press, 29 May 1981, Page 25

Sunday-trading decisions cause worker concern

PA Auckland

The Shop Employees’ Association wants the new Shop Trading Hours Commission removed or replaced. The association saj’s that it is “most unhappy” about the way the one-man commission is functioning, particularly in regard to Sunday trading. It has written to the Minister of Labour (Mr Bolger) setting out its concern and seeking a meeting with Mr Bolger and the Wellingtonbased commissioner. The association, the umbrella organisation for NewZealand's shop workers, fears that recent decisions of the

commission in allowing certain shops to trade on Sundays will inevitably mean that pressure will go on supermarkets to open on Sundays. Mr R. J. Campbell, the association’s advocate, said that a recent commission decision on a craft shop in the Wellington suburb of Eastbourne gave rise to grave concern. In allowing the shop to trade on Sundays, the commission reasoned that because people now worked and shopped on Saturdays they should be able to shop “at leisure” for antiques, cu-. rios, and arts and crafts on

Sundays, Mr Campbell said. The association had been told that more than 2000 shops had applied to become recognised as dairy mixed businesses which, under the broad view of the Shop Trading Hours Act, allowed them to open on Sundays. “The commission is considering applications in most instances without visiting the shops, taking into account only a report from the Labour Department,” said Mr Campbell. Facts in those reports had often been found to be wrong in the past, but the association no longer had the oppor-

tunity to study the reports and 'no potential objectors were able to examine applications, said Mr Campbell. As long as a shop sold milk, it stood a good chance of being allowed to open on Sundays. “Inevitably, the way the new law is being applied, supermarkets will be dragged into trading on Sundays in the same way as the old law dragged them into opening on Saturdays,” Mr Campbell said. He accused the commission of “spearheading” Sunday trading instead of res-, trirfincr if