The proposed law to ban Sunday trading
On 2 September 2016, the representatives of Solidarity submitted to the Sejm a citizens’ bill, which proposes a ban on Sunday trading. Pursuant to the bill, the majority of shops, stalls, warehouses, and franchisees in Poland would be closed on Sundays. The owners would be allowed to open shops only if they stand behind the counter themselves, as well as on a few specified Sundays a year, including the so-called sale Sundays and the ones preceding Christmas, Easter and the beginning of the school year. The ban on Sunday trading would not apply to petrol stations, cafes, bakeries, pharmacies and kiosks. As specified in the original version of the bill, a breach of the rules would be penalised with up to two years’ imprisonment.
The opponents of the ban, mainly representatives of retail chains, economists and the owners of shopping malls, believe that introducing the bill will result in redundancies, with more than 36,000 jobs potentially at risk, and significant losses for the state budget. The bankier.pl website calculated that free Sundays would cost Poland as much as 50 billion zlotys annually. At the same time, proponents of the bill argue that the ban is an attempt to civilise the labour market in Poland. They also add that free Sundays will help to strengthen family bonds while shopping can easily be done during working days.
Joanna Gutrol, a psychologist at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, believes that Poles (especially in big cities) have ‘irregular and shift’ lifestyles. According to her, introducing such a ban will help them maintain social relationships.
Bozena Rybnik, the president of the Katowice branch of the trade union for Spolem’s employees, in an interview with naTemat points to outrageous terms of employment in the retail sector. ‘Employees are already exploited, frequently working during the five working days and one [day which should be a] day off,’ she specifies. She maintains that shop assistants ‘are treated as subhumans’ and the ban on Sunday trading will give them a chance to rest. In response to the argument that work on Sundays is voluntary, Rybnik states that in practice employees are often pushed to work on these days. Threatened by bosses with dismissal, shop assistants must accept such conditions.
A similar view on the matter is presented by Lukasz Komuda, a labour market expert. ‘The labour market in Poland should be civilised and the restriction of Sunday trading is just one of the necessary steps [that should be taken]. We have ineffective and in many ways harmful organizational, corporate and work culture,’ he stated in an interview for PAP. Komuda believes that currently Polish bosses treat their employees ‘as farm hands,’ while overtime work and b ullying is a common practice. He adds that ‘each step towards normality, which we know from Western Europe, where on Sunday in most countries people don’t work at all or only to a limited extent, can bring us closer to breaking this farm curse.’
Even the statements made by the owners of large shop chains and market analysts seem to prove that the whole issue may be just a storm in a teacup. Polish businessman Dariusz Milek (the CEO of CCC footwear company) says that, from his point of view, the ban on Sunday trading ‘means considerable savings’. He adds that owing to redundancies, he ‘will gain 15% in costs’. Haitong Bank’s analysts also believe that the ban on Sunday trading will not affect the operations of Jeronimo Martins Group, the owner of the largest retail chain (in terms of sales revenues) in Poland.
The chairman of the National Office of Banks, Trade and Insurance of NSZZ, Alfred Bujara, says that mainly ‘corporations, which have a lot of money’ lobby against the bill and want to scare Poles. In an interview for Gazeta Wyborcza, Bujara denies that introducing the ban will mean empty shelves in the shops on Mondays and vending machines not working. Bartlomiej Stawiarski, a Law and Justice (PiS) MP, similarly argues that ‘trade on Sunday is mostly defended by those who do not represent social Poland, civic Poland, but those who represent a Poland of the elites, a Poland of the oligarchy, a Poland of clans, a Poland of castes.’ In his view, such people would like to make those who are poorer into ‘pariahs’ and ‘herd them to the tills.’
A common belief is that a restriction of trade on one day of the week will not reduce the consumption level, but rather shift sales to other days. Bujara suspects that ‘in the long term, e.g. 12-18 months [after introducing the ban], shops will learn how to function under the new rules; they will assess the resources needed, and as the visitor numbers in other days will grow, hiring new employees will become necessary.’
However, other argue that such a way of thinking has no connection to reality. ‘It is not true that the elimination of Sunday trade will be fully replaced by the sales on other days,’ writes trojmiasto.pl, a local website. Andrzej Falinski, the general director of Polish Organization of Trade and Distribution, believes that introducing the bill ‘is a very bad idea,’ its aim being to satisfy the populist idea. In an interview with tvn24bis.pl, he states: ‘The unions are defending the interest of the employee, yet it [the ban] will certainly hit the salaries, bonuses and fringe benefits. It will get even worse with employment.’
The Civic Platform (PO) spokesman, Jan Grabiec, is also critical of Solidarity’s idea, calling it oppressive and ideological. According to him, the authors of the bill did not take into account the social and economic results of such restriction. He points out that ‘jobs in retail are important from the point of view of the labor market in many small towns.’ Instead of introducing the ban on trading he proposes less far-reaching solutions, namely strengthening the employees’ rights.
Certainly, one of the main objections regarding the new regulation is connected to a probable decrease in the number of jobs. According to PwC, at least 36,000 people working in retail will lose jobs, and a decline in turnover will reach a minimum of 9.6 billion zlotys. Guillaume de Colonges, the CEO of Carrefour Poland, when asked about the trade unionists’ ideas said that introducing such a ban would reduce the number of jobs not only in retail but also in the other links in the supply chain.
Professor Robert Ciborowski from the University of Bialystok believes that the owners of shops should be able to decide whether they want to do business on Sundays or not. It should be an open issue ‘rather than a top-down regulation.’ In response to the statement that similar regulations already exist in Western European countries, he argues that such laws were introduced many years ago and people have adapted to them. ‘On the other hand, Poles got used to the fact that one can easily do shopping on weekends.’ Changing the shopping habits of three quarters of Poles (as indicated by a survey conducted by TNS Polska) could be difficult as the ban can seem to violate the freedom of choice.
Many publications on the possible introduction of ban on Sunday trading in Poland refer to Hungary, where in March 2015 the government decided to restrict the trade on Sundays. Indeed, there are similarities between Poland and Hungary (both are conservative countries located in the CEE region) that allow for a comparison. What were the consequences of introducing the regulation in Hungary? In an article published by Eurofound in September 2015, Pal Belyo writes that ban on Sunday trading in Hungary ‘appears to have had no direct negative effect on the economy. Overall retail sales have remained steady, and there have been no major lay-offs or closures. Shops have offset the closures by staying open longer on all other days.’ However, the act proved unpopular, with as many as 68% of Hungarians opposing the restrictions. Ultimately, the ban was abolished only one year after its introduction.
Certainly, it will be interesting to see if similar regulations will be adopted in Poland, where shops have been open on Sundays for 25 years. According to a study commissioned by money.pl in 2016, Poles are roughly divided in half when asked about their opinions on the issue, with 46% against the ban and the number of its supporters only five percentage points lower. What is interesting, support for the ban is the lowest in towns of up to 20,000 residents. On the other hand, people living in large cities, such as Krakow, Lodz and Warsaw, are more likely to accept the act, with as many as 53% in favour.
Currently, the bill is being analysed by the parliamentary subcommittee for the labour market. The authors of the bill are still waiting for the opinion of the government. It is already known that some amendments will be introduced to the bill, e.g. replacing potential imprisonment with a fine which will not exceed 10% of the turnover generated by the company in the previous financial year. The government is also believed to oppose the strict ban proposed by Solidarity. The Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy suggested that initially a ban on two Sundays a month could be introduced.
