Employers want Sundays declared ‘normal’ workday

ROSEAU, Dominica (CMC):

The Dominica Employers Federation (DEF) has said that, in order to comply with demands from the public for “more shopping hours” it would seek to have the government amend existing legislation to allow business places to operate on a Sunday.

“One of the major things we are going to do in 2020, and it is not new, it has been on the burner for a while, but we are going to use a different strategy to communicate that that is the business sector’s thinking on how we treat Sundays as far as employment is concerned in this country,” said executive director, Achille Joseph.

Joseph said that, at present, Dominica has the Public Holiday Act that declares Sundays to be public holidays.

“That is in addition to the Christmas holidays, the New Year’s, Easter and Carnival. So we will have in Dominica somewhere around 63, 64 public holidays in a year, taking into consideration Sundays. What that does is that an employee can choose not to come to work on a public holiday… (and) that’s his right and if he decides to work it goes at double time.

“But what has been happening in Dominica for quite a while now is that the country is demanding from the private sector more convenient shopping hours, so businesses are simply responding to the demands of the clientele,” Joseph said.

He said business are now opening on a Sunday “but there is a law that says otherwise”.

“So, in one way, we are violating that law and we don’t want to continue to violate the law. We would like the Sundays to be removed from the Public Holidays Act so businesses are free to open. We are simply saying an employer should be given the freedom to decide whether he opens on a Sunday or not,” he said.

The powerful Waterfront and Allied Workers Union has already said it would not support the initiative by the DEF and that workers “will never return to slavery”.

Hoteliers have also been calling for Sunday to be declared a normal working day.