The government’s project to ban trading on Christmas Eve and allow it on Sunday, December 10, was rejected at a meeting of the Economic and Development Committee this week. The resolution was rejected by 19 votes against seven opponents.
Stanisław Swid, who was still Secretary of State in the Ministry of Family and Social Policy, justified that the change “was justified by the special time of Christmas Eve, the time of preparations and family meetings.” Members of the current opposition pointed out that the project was presented too late and that it was scandalous.
It is disgraceful that the House of Representatives is only dealing with this issue now, because PiS has had a full year to deal with this issue. Waldemar Buda, then Minister of Development and Technology, said in June that this problem needed to be solved, and there was one direction – Christmas Eve should be a holiday, and trade should be allowed on Sunday 10 December.
However, the government did nothing on the matter and the draft law, consisting of two paragraphs on an A4 sheet of paper, was only introduced on 20 November. Meanwhile, according to the Labor Law, employees must receive December schedules by November 23.
Even IKEA, which usually tries to be apolitical, expressed its opinion on the matter. “IKEA stores have been closed on Christmas Eve for several years, out of respect for our employees. However, like the entire industry, we anticipate the second Sunday shopping day in December. As a retail industry, we have been calling on the government to regulate this issue since the spring. Although the draft law was approved by the Council of Ministers on November 14, it was not sent to Parliament. According to the labor law, employees must know their work schedules for December by November 23,” the company wrote on the Protal.X website on November 20.
Finally, at Monday’s meeting, the committee adopted the Poland 2050 project, which will be processed in the Sejm. It is assumed that the trading days will be December 10 and 17. However, on December 24, there will be a trade ban.
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