Petition calls for Bank Holidays to be reinstated/reduction in opening hours
Shopping mall staff are fed up with working ‘all hours’. A petition launched by the Commerce Workers’ Union has garnered over 85,700 signatures, and as such has more than enough support to merit debate in parliament.
The petition calls for the closure of shopping centres on Sundays/ Public holidays, as well as a reduction in working hours in large centres (which often stay open until midnight).
As reports have stressed, this issue “divides opinion”. There are those who believe the Portuguese need shopping centres like they need oxygen, as well as those who see the situation from the workers’ perspective.
The Commerce Workers’ Union is looking for closing hours no later than 10pm, “with the aim of improving the reconciliation of workers’ personal and professional lives”, reports SIC Notícias.
It is not a desire restricted to Portugal: shopping malls already close on Sundays and Bank Holidays in a number of European countries (Spain, Germany, Poland, for example) but in Portugal’s case, SIC suggests, it could “jeopardise jobs” and “force a change in consumers’ shopping habits” (which is exactly what the petition is setting out to do).
