Where is the loudest, where is the debate, should Sundays remain open in commerce, or should the weekend be free for those working in stores? This issue was also discussed in IV. At the EuCET conference, where two trade union leaders, Csaba Bubenkokó, president of the Independent Trade Union of Commercial Workers, and Imre Palkovics, president of the National Association of Workers' Councils, expressed their opinions on this matter.

Csaba Bubenko:

• For years, our activity has been about strengthening the role of the family in the commercial sector. Two very important such areas were discussed, the Sunday opening hours and, more recently, the working hours on December 24, Christmas Eve. (In the latter area, it can be said that the joint action of the two trade unions and the CÖF led to 12 large supermarket chains joining the voluntary closure program - ed.) These questions are essentially about reconciling private life and work. In general, global big capital only has its own interests in mind.

You look down on people when you think that if you pay a worker a little more for weekend work, they will work more.

It is an undermining of the dignity of work, when someone is basically thought to work with honor only if they are paid more. These are phenomena that need to be dealt with in the long term, but also today, as with the disgraceful practice of firing people and letting those who stay there for a bit more money, but also do the work of the person sent. These are daily challenges that unions have to deal with.

• In these matters, the Christian approach cannot be ignored, so that the employer does not treat the employee just as a regular number, but considers him a value, a person. This is also in the interest of the employer, since it does not matter what productivity and efficiency are like during working hours, which can be proven to increase if the employee can feel important and appreciated.

• In relation to weekend work, employers are happy to claim that this is the will of the customers and the interests of the employees, because otherwise they would earn 20-30 percent less, that is, the employees are happy to sacrifice their weekends for higher income. But the reality is a little different. Were Sundays closed in Hungary? Had it for a year. What kind of social movement has taken place on the part of customers or employees as a result? Did the salespeople protest because of the lack of Sunday shift allowance? No.

Of course, there are always and always will be dissatisfied people, but 90 percent of the workers were happy to be closed on Sundays, which also proves that money is not everything.

In that case, time spent with family is more important. And one more point: 70 percent of those working in commerce are women, and family and children are very important factors for women. The one year that the Sunday closure worked proved that the workers needed it. No one complained because they were paid less, rather it could be said that there was indignation and dissatisfaction when Sunday opening hours were restored.

Imre Palkovics:

• When the main argument of employers, investors and the left-liberal political forces representing their interests is that you will earn less, they keep silent about the fact that these people cannot earn the money they need for a decent living in 8 hours a day, they are forced to to take on mindless overtime and weekend work. They only emphasize one aspect, they act like a donkey who dangles a carrot in front of its nose, and when it starts to run because it wants to reach its treat. They think that the employee is also at this level, that he is willing to sacrifice everything for the extra income.

He does it because he needs it, but he should earn that wage during the fair, legal daily working hours.

So these international multinational companies, those who pocket serious profits from the unpaid wages of Hungarian employees working in retail trade, should be paid as much as they are paid for the same work in their own country. Today, German, Austrian, and Dutch workers are paid roughly three times as much for the same work as Hungarians.

• So our main goal is to pay people fairly and not to force them to work day and night, including Sundays. Which, by the way, is also contrary to the Christian way of life. The Lord ordered that we rest on the seventh day, but even the practice of faith is not given to them on Sundays. But non-believers also have the opportunity to create harmony between work, family and private life. It would not be a small problem for the multinationals to pay their employees fairly, because when they find that employees are starting to leave them in the hope of a better income, they immediately raise wages by a few percent and thus attract workers from the surrounding workplaces.

It wouldn't ruin them even if they paid three times higher wages than today.

It is of course true that in this case there would be a labor shortage elsewhere, but this is another question, a question of wage structure, how could the wage system in Hungary be designed in such a way that it corresponds to the reasonable occupational hierarchy. Such a system is still lacking in Hungary today.

Photo: civilek.info