There is growing discontent at retailers who have chosen to open their stores on Thanksgiving day this year in an effort to bring in more sales. The discontent felt by many is in response to their feeling that those retailers are taking advantage of their workers and forcing them to work these hours. Though the federal government in the US has recognized Thanksgiving as a holiday, there is not a mandate in place that requires all workers to be let off for the day, at least not yet. Unless specifically implied in an employment contract companies can require their employees to work hours that they set or days that may not be in accordance to "the norm" set by others. But this should not be seen as a bad thing.
In the theory that prices are wages and vice versa, those that are employed and work on these days are adding to the personal income while the employers are adding to their own sales numbers, cost and benefits to both. All the parts to the market process win in this scenario. The worker earns his wage, allowing him to purchase goods. The consumer is able to buy goods, with their own wages, on an open schedule and with workers to run the transactions. The employer or business has both workers and consumers participating in the system. Allowing for both sides of the transaction the business has facilitated trade and helped a worker to earn a wage, in lieu of their labor. It really is a win-win-win situation.
They (the public at large) want employment. They want more products. They want consumerism. But they also want the ability to regulate who can work, where they can work, when they can work, and for how long they can work.
They want control over the businesses, not through market participation (or non-participation) but through the hand and fist of government. (This is a petition aimed at government workers, but others have been started to mandate holidays off for some industries, excluding some at the same time.)
They want to be able to buy their widgets, at low prices, with high wages for the workers and paradisaical hours and schedules without the hindrance of anyone else's wishes to be inconvenienced by unopened stores or working late night hours. Quite Utopian a task to regulate such a feat to not impose on the wishes of others, or to not have your own wishes imposed upon.
It really is no surprise that there is the feelings of disgust and opposition towards holiday working hours and they are not aimed at the workers themselves directly, they are aimed at the economic position of the worker, the business and the shopper alike. All of these work in unison to create the market, and the more regulation in the way hinders one or all of these three in some way.
Now this is only addressing the retail stores that are to be open on Thanksgiving day but take this a bit further in the thought process and we see what others miss. If we were to say that the retailers were to be forced to not open on specific days, holidays in fact, why would we not extend this same idea to all facets of service to others. Bus Stations, Airports, Rescue Workers, maybe even to force prostitutes and drug dealers to refrain from work by decree, all areas of services to others should be In the name of mandated fairness that so many call for why should any of these other services be able to operate? Air travel should come to a halt for 24 hours, Policemen and women able to spend the day with their families, prostitutes forced to not take clients for one full day. If this idea is really in the name of allowing those workers in retail to have time with their family on any given day, this extended idea should be of no debate, it is after all in the name of the family structure and fairness. So we have to look at the long reaching effects of what is being proposed. Gas stations closed, toll booths and the roads the are on closed. Grocery stores closed. Not being able to run and get that one last piece for a joyful holiday all because working on holidays had been regulated away. Every business following suit of retailers and being forced to close for one whole day.
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