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Victoria Mindova

Greek retailers’ working on Sunday proves to be one of the most controversial issues of the new century for the country in crisis. The government's willingness to reform the domestic economic model has found its opponents on many fronts and one of them is the retail sector.

The Christmas season is traditionally associated with an increase in consumption and high turnovers of shops. If you walk the streets of Athens during the holidays, you will find that despite the crisis, people shop without restraint. Commercial areas such as Ermou, Monastiraki and Kolonaki are flooded with streams of people who do not wait for the discounts but have embarked on holiday shopping.

However, the data of official trade unions this year show that December's purchases decreased by an average of 20-25% compared to the same period in 2011 and some of the retailers are indignant. According to the chairman of the trade union of the country, Vassilis Korkidis, annual trade turnover decreased by 10 billion euro, which means that the state will receive an average of four billion euro less in taxes. In his personal Twitter profile, Korkidis complains: "Another year of low interest during Christmas. The main distinguishing feature of all the shops will be poor turnover again."

GRReporter’s research indicates that not all share this view. "Sunday, 23 December, which was the first of the two working Sundays during the Christmas and New Year holidays, was one of our most successful days in the year. Turnover doubled and the number of customers was unprecedented," the manager of a shop of an international youth fashion chain told GRReporter in exclusive. She says that the customers on the Sunday before Christmas were mostly young people and families with young children, who work late during the week and do not have time to go shopping.

"People were grateful to us that our shop was open on Sunday," she says, adding that customers are more willing to shop if they know that time is not pressing them as on weekdays. The shop manager does not deny that in 2012, people considered more carefully how to spend their money compared with consumer behaviour three years ago. Currently, quality and functionality are prevailing rather than quantity, which does not have a negative impact on turnover, some representatives of the sector state.

"We support the idea of ​​the government for shops to be allowed to operate on Sundays throughout the year. Lifting the restrictions will allow both the retailers and consumers to choose and to rank their priorities and I think that it will also allow the revenues in the tills, as well as the revenues from taxes in the treasury, to increase," she says.

Some retailers’ circles insist on keeping Sunday a day off for shops on the basis of the existing legislation. It forces employers in the retail sector to pay employees working over the weekends a wage 75% higher than their remuneration during regular workdays. Small retailers and craftsmen are among the most serious opponents of the liberalization of the opening hours in the sector, but have not officially asked the government to cancel the higher pay for working over the weekends.

Suddenly, the federation of employees in the retail sector announced on Friday a strike and threatened that the shops would remain closed although it was a working day. Employees in the retail sector have been called to take part in a 24-hour strike and meeting at 10 am on Sunday in Syntagma Square to protest against the government's insistence to allow shops to open on Sundays. It is not yet clear whether the strike will succeed, but the general mood is that the participation in the protest will not be strong.