Will there be a refund regarding the Sunday trading ban? An appeal from an unexpected direction

The Act on Sunday trading restrictions has been in force in Poland for 8 years. In the initial period – from March to December 2018 – stores were open on the first and last Sunday of the month, in 2019 only on the last. In the years 2020-2024, there were seven trading Sundays a year. We are talking about the last Sunday of January, April, June and August, as well as the Sunday before Easter and two Sundays before Christmas. Last year, there was a change that included the introduction of an additional shopping Sunday at the beginning of December.

Trade unionists want to restore shopping Sundays

The idea for introducing a ban on Sunday trading came from trade unionists from NSZZ “Solidarność”. Now trade unionists, but from the Trade Union Alternative, are calling for the restoration of shopping Sundays.

The union points out that the current regulations are so full of holes and inconsistent that the act pushed through by the previous government and “Solidarity” has become a “complete fiction.” – Current Polish regulations are unfavorable for employees and consumers. Most stores are open on Sundays, which are called non-trading Sundays, and these are the establishments that treat employees the worst, and the goods they sell are the most expensive and of the lowest quality. Only the largest establishments are closed, i.e. the trade segment, where the Labor Code is violated much less frequently than in small stores. In other words, current regulations favor junk employment and poor quality products – we read in a statement published by the Trade Union Alternative.

The Trade Union Alternative wants the restrictions to be completely abolished, but with a guarantee of higher pay for people working on the last day of the week. – Our proposal is 2.5 times higher rates for work on Sundays than for work on weekdays. In other words, the minimum hourly wage for work on Sundays would be PLN 78.50 (2.5 times PLN 31.40), and the minimum wage for an eight-hour work day on Sundays would be as much as PLN 628. Thanks to this solution, only those stores that were willing to pay decent prices would remain open on Sundays – emphasize trade unionists.

It is worth emphasizing that the Trade Union Alternative wants the above solutions to cover all industries where work on Sunday takes place.

A survey conducted by SW Research for “Wprost” conducted in mid-June shows that 43.9 percent Poles want the ban on Sunday trading to be lifted. However, slightly less, 41.3 percent. respondents have the opposite opinion, and 14.8 percent respondents have no opinion on this matter.

The next trading Sunday will be August 30.