Avainsana: Labour relations

Julkaistu

Serious about supply chain sustainability? Business, unions and advocacy organisations need to work together

To promote better labour conditions in global supply chains we need effective and sincere public-private cooperation in consumer countries. We need socially responsible buyer companies willing to invest in supply chain conditions. We need trade unions and civil society organisations that have set their priorities right and put supply chain workers’ interests first.

Why do we have so much suspicion and conflict between those who should be driving positive supply chain change together, as main private sector partners?

Relations have deteriorated

Global supply chain relations have indeed deteriorated during a number of years. Where joint sustainability approaches used to play the major tole we now see new alliances between global unions and labour advocacy organisations. Businesses tend to go more on their own than before, and there is a much weaker trade union participation in voluntary schemes and initiatives.

Labour relations are now more adversarial and the political climate harder than before the economic crisis hit. Instead of sharing the added value created by growth, labour partners fight over who will pay the costs of shrinking economies. Workers are carrying an unreasonably heavy burden through unemployment and dwindling standards. Income differences are bigger than ever and political polarization continues to generate conflicts and instability.

The International Labour Conference in June sent conflicting signals on supply chains. Employer organisations started by doing their best to deny that there would be governance issues needing to be tackled. Global trade unions and their NGO allies again saw nothing good in voluntary initiatives, questioned the sincerity of buyers and did not hide their preference for legislation that would impose rules and sanctions on them. Much of this was normal ILO tactics, for sure, but there is also a troubling reality behind.

An adversarial start was finally turned into agreement to continue discussions, with much of the credit going to the International Labour Office and ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.

Why are unions and campaigners against voluntary initiatives?

I can well see many reasons why global unions question voluntary multi-stakeholder and business driven social sustainability initiatives. Some criticism is fair enough, other reflections are linked more to trade union needs and ambitions. It is good to remember that corporate social responsibility itself is something suspicious in broad union circles. Business is not at all too innocent in this respect, having too often used CSR as a vehicle to avoid trade union recognition and collective agreements.

Many unions and advocacy NGOs are unhappy with what they see as a slow pace or even absence of improvements in supply chain labour conditions. They genuinely believe that voluntary initiatives have failed to change overall supply chain realities. This is why they call for more legal regulations and accountability.

These views are good to take seriously.

Brands and retailers have often dragged their feet and failed to act on poor working conditions in their supply chains. They ignored their due diligence obligations which of course existed far before the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights made them formal. For sure, there were brands and retailers that understood this and really tried to do something concrete, but there were also very many who did not.

Unfair to accuse initiatives for poor supply chain labour conditions

I share much of this union and civil society disappointment over an all too slow slow pace of change. The enormity of the task is a contributing factor, but also a bad excuse for not investing more resources and effort. Still, full credit should be given to the many brands and retailers who are very actively working on these challenges.

It is both unfair and professional to criticize the sustainability schemes and initiatives for this, or social compliance auditors. Here we often find the actors who have the strongest and most concrete commitment to decent conditions in supplier industries and who are trying to do something real.

To promote and support organising and collective agreements in producer countries is a legitimate activity for any trade union. At the end, working conditions and labour relations must be managed locally, respecting universal global norms. This requires a social dialogue between mutually respectful partners who negotiate collective agreements. They should preferably be concluded on an industry level, applied and enforced with effective government support. The IndustriAll-driven ACT project together with a number of buying brands in Cambodia is an interesting pilot for such approaches.

Many unions and advocacy organisations make a mistake when they try to throw out voluntary multi-stakeholder or business driven schemes and initiatives. There is no way that unions and social advocacy organisations could fill the gap if brands and retailers were to abandon their own programmes and activities. It is more than unlikely that most retailers and brands, and governments, would agree to substitute this work with legislation and sanctions. I also fail to see the logic in unionists and labour advocates demanding brands and retailers to respect their due diligence obligations if they are at the same time doing their best to discredit serious efforts. Ending the voluntary involvement of buying companies could spell disaster for workers in many supplier industries and countries.

The multi-stakeholder Bangladesh Fire and Safety Accord has achieved many things and I do support it of course, but we should also remember that even together with the business-driven Alliance it covers only a part of labour conditions, albeit an important one. The whole field of human rights and sustainability at work is very much broader. The problems encountered when trying to secure freedom of association within these projects send a message that mainstreaming their principles would be an extremely complicated and long process, if not even politically impossible.

Both legislation and voluntary schemes are needed

We will continue to need all stakeholders on the stage, both public and private, employers and unions. Voluntary schemes and initiatives are an important tool for this. For sure there needs to be more legally binding norms as well. National governments and the international community need tools to set minimum acceptable standards and at the same time a level playing field which would also protect serious enterprises against social dumping and unfair competition. How this could be done without creating disadvantages in the countries where governments take their obligations seriously, and without scaring buyers away from the least developed producer countries, remain to be seen.

As a result of awareness building, where multi-stakeholder and business driven voluntary initiatives have played the central role, supply chain conditions cannot be ignored by business anymore. They are now part of core corporate issues and concerns. Buyer-driven capacity building and remediation activities abound and suppliers have to pay more attention to their labour conditions.

This does not mean that voluntary initiatives should not improve their performance – in fact they are constantly doing this. I take an example which I know very well, Social Accountability International SAI. With their Social Fingerprint and Ten Squared programmes and an impressive work to improve SA8000 social audit reliability, the new young SAI leadership does indeed merit a very strong support from business, unions and other stakeholders. This is a good example of linking social auditing and workplace certification to capacity building and remediation.

The SA8000 Social Standard is still the strongest instrument to define and promote human rights at work and decent working conditions. In today’s social climate it would not be possible to reach a common understanding between the labour partners on levels as high as those in SA8000. Being one of the authors of the standard-setting GSCP Reference Code I can also vouch for the SA8000 having been one of the main resources in that work. SAI – as well at the Social Accountability Accreditation Services SAAS – has been an important source of knowledge and experience while we were working on the whole GSCP toolbox, with its guidelines and advisories for all parts of sustainability activities.

Campaigning against social auditing hurts workers and is not professional

Social audits play an important role when buying brands and retailers exercise their supply chain due diligence. Being visible and commercially managed parts of voluntary initiatives both auditors and auditing firms have been a frequent target for campaigns and criticism. Individual shortcomings and mismanagement cases have been generalized to question the credibility of the whole activity and industry. This is both unfair and incorrect towards the numerous serious and highly skilled enterprises and individual auditors who are producing important services for supply chain businesses and their workers. Without them, due diligence would be impossible. It is not professional to allow criticism against globalization and mistrust against large private enterprises influence the attitudes to social auditing.

Most social auditing takes place outside the public eye and there are indeed many reasons for this. Confidentiality rules are equally important to protect workers as their supplier employers. Without these rules it would often be impossible to get a correct picture of conditions.

Demands for more transparency in  global supply chains and buyers’ supplier relations will surely bring some changes to sustainability audits. This has to be done without violating the necessary confidentiality. The auditing industry itself can benefit from this. The new Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors APSCA where I am now a member of the Stakeholder Board will have to address this issue.

We need respect and new cooperation between supply chain players

We should move to new convergence within global supply chain sustainability work and engage both public and private partners in joint efforts. We do need to accept and support a broad specter of action and initiatives, the task is far too big to successfully approach otherwise. This we owe to the workers and their families as well as to the businesses and entrepreneurs in producer countries. Relations at home in advanced consumer countries cannot be allowed to undermine effective joint efforts but must be kept separate. The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP has proved that this can be done and a similar message comes from Germany’s Textile Alliance.

Genuine engagement and responsibility, mutual respect by and for all participants, and honest intentions to build pragmatic and effective partnership are some of the elements that are now needed.

Julkaistu

The Consumer Goods Forum took over GSCP – focus on combating forced labour

The Consumer Goods Forum moved in a timely way when integrating the Global Social Compliance Programme into its structures and work. The GSCP sustainability toolbox had been completed and the convergence-driving equivalence process was well established. Emphasis needed to be shifted to new things.

Taking up the challenge of forced labour in global supply chains was both bold and ambitious and sends a signal about how serious the approach is. When the joint CGF effort takes off it can again prove that voluntary private sector initiatives can effectively defend and support human rights and promote decent work in the globalised economy. As a member of the Advisory Board, I am pleased that GSCP was given the task of initiating and helping to launch this work. It does show the success of our common initiative.

When I was invited to bring the trade unions into this newly formed sustainability platform my first reaction was rather reserved. There was this group of leading multinational retailers and they had already developed a code and set a work programme. Would we really be able to influence, or be there just to give credibility to big business?

My discussions with the founding companies, particularly Carrefour at that time, convinced me that changes and adjustments would be made so that we could come on board. 

This was not a self-evident decision for UNI Commerce. Some of the GSCP companies were engaged in serious labour conflicts with our affiliates – how could we work side by side with them without weakening the union positions? What about the right to form trade unions and conclude collective agreements?

My view was – and still is – that industrial country employers and trade unions cannot act out on their disagreements or labour conflicts at the expense of workers and their families in supplier regions. This would be both immoral and unethical. We have a shared responsibility for supporting human rights and decent working conditions in countries that cannot or will not do it on their own.

Maybe my own Nordic background where seeking social dialogue and partnership plays a central role for my conviction that we should join. Thus I was pleased and even impressed that the UNI Commerce unions agreed and decided to set out on the joint voyage.

Our work on the Reference Code as well as the other parts of the unique GSCP sustainability toolbox was always marked by a genuine will from all participants to find the best and most effective approaches to defining what good looks like and how it can best be promoted in the global supply chains.

Today’s labour relations climate is harder than when we built up GSCP together. Instead of sharing the results of growth employers and unions deal with paying the costs of shrinking economies. This has also affected sustainability work.

Global unions have downgraded or even ended their participation in many schemes and initiatives. They are openly questioning social audits and voluntary programmes, calling for more legislation instead. For this, they have formed new alliances with militant social advocacy organisations. We have indeed witnessed something of a collapse of broad multi-stakeholder cooperation on social sustainability in global supply chains.

At the ILO International Labour Conference in June this year we could see the divides. Unions and their NGO allies were pushing for a new binding Labour Convention while employers denied that there were governance problems or any need for new regulations. The end result was largely non-committal as could be expected and discussions about a possible new Convention continue. 

Many unions and advocacy organisations hope that the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights would be applied through binding legislation in the home countries of buyer companies. I have seen this clearly also through my participation in Germany’s Textile Alliance.

With governments unwilling to put their own business sectors at disadvantage, this will not happen. Also from a development point of view increased risks for sanctions – also for unintended issues – could lead brands and retailers to leave some of the least developed countries where the need for a foreign economic involvement may be biggest. I am convinced that respecting the UN and OECD due diligence obligations will continue to rely largely on voluntary corporate responsibility schemes and initiatives.

I do understand the NGO and union frustrations over what they feel is an all too slow pace of positive changes through audit based initiatives. Still I think that much of the criticism is unfair, maybe also driven by their own organisational interests. The projects that they have developed themselves are highly supportable and can be useful as best practice examples, but too narrow both to substance and coverage to make a real difference for the total supply chain picture.

Both buyer companies and sustainability schemes have done much to support human rights and decent working conditions in global supply chains. GSCP has played a major role in moving emphasis from audit reports to improving labour conditions. Both capacity building and remediation has grown, most of it enabled by the buyer community.

Social auditing continues to be an essential part of this work. GSCP has done much to support the auditing industry in its efforts to secure audit quality and reliability and this work now continues in the new Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors. I have joined the APSCA Stakeholder Board together with representatives of some of the CGF member companies, a further sign of these links.

Approaching the forced labour issues through joint activities does not mean that the CGF, GSCP or member companies would abandon the rest of their agenda. Driving convergence of social sustainability work at a high and demanding level remains essential if we want real and positive changes to take place in the supply chains.

Very much is already being done, but regrettably much of it outside the public eye. While brands and retailers are very skilled in marketing their products they are much less active in telling about their own sustainability work. Here, both the CGF and GSCP should pay much attention to transparency and reporting. The work to eradicate forced labour will give a good opportunity to do this and thus also draw attention to the need for broad public-private cooperation to defend human rights at work.

Julkaistu

Level playing field through supply chain labour convention supported by voluntary schemes and initiatives

The ILO in Geneva

I have been following – at distance – the ongoing ILO Labour Conference #ILC2016 in Geneva. Much of the discussions center around the often unacceptably poor working conditions in global supply chains, as well as the all too common human rights violations.

The International Labour Organisation ILO brings together governments, employers and trade unions from around the world. This tripartite UN organisation develops and agrees global labour norms which are then set as a basis for national legislation and collective agreements.

Fundamental rights are regulated by core Conventions which have to be applied by all member countries whether they have ratified them or not.

The global supply chains which provide us a with a major part of what we consume have brought new dimensions to setting labour standards. Here, not only the direct employers in producing countries determine working conditions, but very much also the powerful buying brands and retailers. Their influence on supplier conditions is substantial as prices and purchasing conditions can set severe limitations on what the producer in a developing or newly industrialised country is able to offer. This does not mean that these supplier companies would be benign employers, often quite to the contrary, but it does limit the possibilities to press nationally for improvements.

Many brands and retailers have realised that they need to share in the responsibility for employment and working conditions in their supply chains. This has been accepted also by the international community, for instance in the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Companies.

The workers’ group at the Labour Conference say that they wish to see a new International Labour Convention to protect the supply chain workers who are often vulnerable and work under difficult and even unsafe conditions for wages far below what is needed for a decent life.

Not surprisingly at all, the employers’ group lead by the International Organisation of Employers IOE say no to any regulations. They insist that new rules are not needed and that dealing with problems is more of a practical task.

Often these employer politicians are slower and more reluctant to accept the need for change than real life employers and business leaders. When we look at positions taken by many top global brands and retailers we can see that they are far ahead of the Geneva outfit. Of course, the negotiating setup at the ILO plays its own role for positioning.

Like in other parts of life and society, constructive and responsible behaviour in global supply chains requires both binding legislation and conviction and voluntary action by business itself.

Some of the more advanced companies could well on their own enable decent conditions in their supply chains. Many are making sincere efforts to do this. Still, binding rules are needed to establish a level playing field that guarantees the basic worker rights at the same time as it protects brands, retailers and suppliers from unfair competition. A new convention would also make it more difficult to push less developed supplier countries to compete with each other through a downward spiral.

Of course, drafting a new supply chain convention would be a highly complicated task. Any new responsibilities will need to be analysed very carefully in order to avoid unwanted effects, including on investment decisions.

Confidence levels are also at a low between many stakeholder groups and business which complicates the situation now when advocacy organisations play a more visible role on the side of trade unions which have an established negotiating culture and direct responsibility to their constituents in companies and workplaces.

Also unions need to take a critical look at themselves, especially the global unions that have to play the role as a counterforce to the no-saying IOE employers. To combine a vocal criticism towards social responsibility schemes and initiatives with the drive for binding regulations, denying the value of these schemes and initiatives, is not the best of approaches.

There has to be room for both legislation through a new Convention and for voluntary schemes that allow going further and help applying the principles. In many countries concerned it will take a long time before local trade unions emerge and genuine tripartite labour relations can take on the responsibility.

To build up an artificial conflict between binding legislation and voluntary initiatives will only weaken the chances of arriving at an acceptable result.

Julkaistu

Global Supply Chain Leaders GSCP and SAI Position Themselves in Changing Landscape

Many things are moving in the social sustainability landscape this spring, but will they contribute to real improvement for working families world-wide? This question is relevant also for four international events during the next few weeks that I am preparing for. They all deal with global supply chains, but from very different angles.

The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP meets in Berlin at the end of the month, both for its own meeting and for a multi-stakeholder conference arranged together with the German Government. Later in the week, the Advisory Board of Social Accountability International SAI (SA8000) meets for three days in Florence, Italy. After the First of May weekend, Germany’s multi-stakeholder Textile Alliance (Textilbündnis) convenes a working meeting in Frankfurt a.M. to continue preparing its principles and work programme, also hosted by the Federal Government.

GSCP Brings Leading Brands and Retailers to Sustainability Work

The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP is first in line with a members’ meeting in Berlin at the end of the month. This initiative represents many of the worlds largest brands and retailers and has been driving convergence in a very much split corporate responsibility landscape. Its work builds on a reference code and a number of tools that set high standards and provide guidance for sustainability work. An intention is that global supply chain actors could recognise each others’ social audit results and cooperate more actively in the important remediation and capacity building.

GSCP is now pretty much done with creating this foundation and is increasingly trying to support and promote real change for the better. Much attention is still given to developing management systems for social and environmental sustainability, both in supplier and buyer companies. Monitoring conditions and their development through social and environmental auditing continues to be an important and necessary pillar for these activities.

Public – Private Cooperation Supports Sustainable Development Goals

A major GSCP achievement has been to raise the sustainability awareness of the Consumer Goods Forum CGF and its members. These companies are among the largest in the world and can play a critically important role for global supply chain sustainability.

The second event does in fact reflect these developments. In a letter last summer to the German G7 Presidency, the CGF member companies committed themselves to participate in the world-wide work for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This promise is now followed up at an international Conference arranged in Berlin with the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development BMZ, directly following the GSCP meeting.

Action on Forced Labour Opens Concrete Cooperation

The concrete human rights and sustainability commitment chosen by the CGF brands and retailers for joint action is to remove all forced labour from their supply chains. This does not mean that the other human and workers’ rights would be left out. The obligation to apply the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights is still on the agenda even if the particular issue of forced labour has been singled out as a specific aim.

To support the credibility of the entire CSR field, these large companies should now say clearly what they intend to do and deliver substantial results reasonably fast. Work on this is in fact going on, involving also GSCP.

Important resources must also be allocated to define the major problem areas and address the issues effectively. Walking away from suppliers who cannot prove that their own supply chains are not clean will not be an alternative. Forced labour is found from high seas fishing and cotton growing to mining and manufacturing, all areas that need to be addressed. A special challenge will be to go deeper down in the supply chains than to the final suppliers only. This has not been the strong point of most sustainability schemes and initiatives and will need particular attention.

I have been a member of the Advisory Board of GSCP since the beginning of this initiative. During these years I have seen how many of the large buyer companies have acted effectively in support of workers’ rights in their supply chains. There have been both interesting and innovative approaches to this which would have merited much more public attention. I have no doubts that – with a serious engagement – we will see much of these also in the activities against forced labour.

Recognising the importance of this CSR work and the social audit based supply chain engagement of buyer companies can contribute significantly to improving conditions for the working families concerned. This does not mean that we can be complacent. Criticism is important as it helps to push things forward, but it also needs to recognise the importance of the engagement and participation of global brands and retailers. The BMZ Berlin Conference will hopefully contribute to a broader coalition building and cooperation instead of an often ideologically influenced negativism against business driven action.

Social Accountability International SAI Continues as Innovative Leader in Sustainability Field

Social Accountability International SAI meets immediately after this for its Advisory Board meeting. The three day event hosted by Gucci in Florence, Italy is also the starting point for a new stage of the organisation’s development. With a new President and CEO Jane Hwang and a new President of the Board of Directors Dan Henkle, SAI is well prepared to secure a leading role as an innovative and highly respected multi-stakeholder initiative. The SA8000 Social Standard and the detailed application guidelines make this into a unique and recognised benchmark for best sustainability practice.

I have had the privilege of working with SAI and its founder and President Alice Tepper Marlin over many years, both in the Board of Directors and the Advisory Board. This is where I have learned what sustainability and social responsibility in global supply chains really means. Alice and her team, where also Jane Hwang has played an important role, have built up a solid organisation which is well positioned to meet today’s challenges and make use of the opportunities to effectively promote human rights at work.

Julkaistu

Amazon in Germany should negotiate with workers’ trade union and accept European labour relations culture

Amazon’s long-lasting labour conflict in Germany raises issues far beyond wages and working conditions. Amazon needs to accept to negotiate with ver.di and to respect European and German working life culture.

The American e-commerce giant refuses to negotiate a collective agreement with ver.di which is the Amazon workers’ trade union, a leading member of Germany’s powerful trade union confederation DGB. According to the union, they make extensive use of time limited employment contracts also when there is no reason for it, and when workers stay quite permanently in their positions. Many wages and other benefits remain below general collective agreement levels even if the workers’ action has already forced management to make some concessions.

Strikes are usually about much more than wages only. For workers to go on strike is a difficult decision and today’s trade unions both know and respect this. The unions know very well that a protracted conflict leads to serious income losses that require a long time to recover, however ‘good’ the result. Here, the workers and their union stand up in defence of German and European social dialogue and collective agreement cultures.

This is not the first time that a U.S. based company wants to play its own game in Europe instead of respecting the rules. Toys”R”Us tried it a few decades ago until it was driven out of Sweden. Wal-Mart got it wrong in Germany, suffered for a few years, and pulled back.

Amazon needs to accept that their German workforce is well organised.  They must be prepared to negotiate a collective agreement in good faith, fully respecting International Labour Conventions. In the longer run they will not be able to import an authoritarian human resource management in a culture and environment where social dialogue is widely supported. Many leading German politicians have joined in calling on the company to start negotiating with ver.di and putting an end to this conflict.

This is an example of a large employer forcing a labour conflict by its own behaviour. If the workers and their union would accept management’s refusal to enter into social dialogue and collective agreement negotiations the entire labour relations system could come under pressure.

Not only trade unions should be concerned. Competing employers who approach their workers and their trade unions responsibly have an equal interest to defend themselves. This is shared by society as a whole, particularly in times when social unrest and political instability are increasing also in Europe.

It is no wonder that behaviour like this easily drives polarisation and aggressiveness instead of promoting social dialogue and even cooperation. This will not help Europe to get out of the crisis.

Julkaistu

Shop opening hours affect workers and societies – should not be left to market forces to decide

Hypermarket at night in Seoul South Korea

Trading hours don’t affect only shop workers but also society at large. Excessive shop opening hours will force many others to work on Sundays and holidays or late at night. And do we really want all days to be the same, from Monday to Sunday, 365 days a year? More complex than we sometimes reflect on, opening hours cannot be left to market forces alone.

Once again, many shop workers worked on New Year’s Day. Of course, they were not the only ones. There were many others who spent the first day of 2015 at work instead of being with family and friends.

Societies have to function also on important holidays, and many services are needed. Some are clearly essential, others can be discussed. Retail shops provide important services for sure, but is it necessary that they do this 365 days a year, 7 days a week and 24 hours a day?

Trading hours is one of the issues that both business and trade unions, and society at large, need to look carefully at. Accepting that there are different values, traditions, cultures and also interests, we should do this with an open mind.

Retailing is an industry where substantial changes can happen fast. Today, much is about e-commerce. Web-sales continue to gain ground while jobs are lost in traditional commerce.

From the start, e-commerce has been used as an argument for trading hours liberalisation. High street shops and supermarkets cannot compete if they must follow shop opening rules. Trading hours restrictions have outlived themselves. The market and finally the consumers will decide. Limited hours drive customers from shops to the web, the proponents for removing shop opening rules say.

If stores really would be closed when consumers have time to shop this argumentation could make some sense. Many decades ago we could saw them close at 17 or so from Monday to Friday and 14 or 15 or even noon-time on Saturdays. There were serious calls by some unions for closing completely on Saturdays as well, to allow for a five day working week with the weekend free.

Even in the most regulated of environments today’s opening hours give plenty of time for shopping even for those with long working hours.

I cannot see that a regulated shop opening would be the major issue that drives consumers from high streets and supermarkets to the web. Other factors will surely be more important, such as price and assortment.

Some goods and services are just easier to select on the web than in a store. Bookstores and computer shops, home electronics outlets and traditional department stores face serious problems. Supermarket retailing on the internet continues to grow. Music and movies have already moved to electronic sites.

This will go on and traditional retailers will change, or suffer until it may be too late.

Over the years we got used to seeing commerce as a growth sector. It was a major entry road to employment and gave opportunities also for those whose formal education was not all that strong. Today we see shops being closed and staff being cut even where we did not think it would ever happen.

This can not be stopped or slowed down by letting market forces steer shop opening in an unregulated environment. Instead, we could see new problems emerge, for many, and for all of us.

Regulating trading hours is genuinely important for shop workers and others whose jobs are affected. Retailing is a low-wage industry where women form the big majority of the workforce. The negative social effects of excessive opening hours should not be ignored.

Eating from the fridge easily takes over from the Sunday dinner table. Doing and experiencing things as a family is more difficult and the role of parents and homes is undermined whilst everyone agrees that it should be strengthened. Day care centers are closed when they would be needed. To get home from work is difficult if public transport has ended for the day. Late night security risks abound.

The list could be much longer.

Inequalities have reached a level where even the World Economic Forum sees it as the biggest threat to our societies. The divide between those who have and those who don’t is deep and growing. Mass migration creates a third class in many societies. Unemployment is high and soaring.

Xenophobia and racism are on the rise. Young people who have lost hope revolt, and worse.

As this happens, business is taking the place of voters as the source of power. And, what does this have to do with shop opening hours?

The question is whose interests and which values drive the development of societies? Can economic interests be reconciled even better with cultural and social values?

Do we really want to give up our rhythm of life, for a new reality where everything is up and running 365 days a year and 7 days a week, possibly also 24 hours a day? From Monday to Sunday all days would be the same. If retailing goes this way, lots of other functions will have to follow a d extend their operating times. This would affect both the private and the public sectors – and workers.

What about employment then?

It is hard to see how this would promote job creation as retailing depends on the purchasing power of consumers and extending trading hours would hardly bring much added value. What may happen is that small shops, which in many countries already benefit from opening hours exceptions, would be pushed out even faster by larger operators.

There are seldom simple solutions to complex problems. Here we are dealing with a very complicated issue. Removing all regulations could have more negative consequences than positive effects. Changes and adjustments should of course be made when useful and necessary. The tricky thing is then to adapt to realities without losing human and cultural values.

Maybe the European social partners for commerce – UNI-Europa Commerce and EuroCommerce – should do a study on trading hours, accepting that they would be likely to draw conflicting conclusions from the material. At least the issues would be jointly defined, the first step to enable a dialogue.