Since the Association Voice of Entrepreneurs (UGP) has submitted a request for a constitutional review of the Trade Act, I cannot refrain from commenting on this law that is already in effect. A year ago, I also commented on it when it was just announced in its current form (the ban on store operations on Sundays except for sixteen Sundays a year), calling the opportunistic Catholics in HDZ hypocrites.
In general, UGP believes that the contested provisions violate fundamental human rights and freedoms, which I must admit seemed unconvincing to me at first, specifically constitutional entrepreneurial freedoms and the right to the inviolability of property. They say that the violation of these rights cannot be justified to protect another (i.e., workers), which is generally correct, but I wondered how the human rights and freedoms of entrepreneurs are being violated to protect workers. And the answer came immediately: namely, besides employees in stores, the Sunday work ban also affects owners of crafts or small businesses, who often work alone, without other employees, or have employed family members. We are talking about the well-known owners of flower shops, souvenir shops, bakeries, and small retailers…
Big ones can at least do something
Well, that’s something else because in those activities, there are few who have more employees, so the government cannot justify banning work in crafts to protect workers. For example, in my neighborhood, a married couple has a fruit and vegetable store. They did not work on Sundays before either, but they decided so, or they assessed that it was not profitable, and they still need at least one day a week to rest. So, what did the state have to protect them as store owners by banning work on Sundays when they had already decided that before the voting on those changes?
Moreover, UGP says that the provisions of the Trade Act create inequality among traders in the market precisely because of the possibility for large chains to choose which sixteen Sundays of the year they will operate. Namely, they will be able to organize themselves so that one of their stores in the city operates every Sunday, but small retailers rarely can organize themselves in that way because they usually have one store. And in that, UGP is right. The example of my neighbors confirms this: they have only one store, and if they had (as they did not) wanted to work on Sundays before, they would not have various options like retail chains. By placing small retailers in the same category as large retail chains, those provisions (now clearer to me) mentioned by UGP regarding entrepreneurial freedoms, or restrictions on freedoms that will immeasurably harm small stores more than large retail chains, are violated.
