Slate.com has an interesting article today. It’s all about Blue Laws. For those who don’t know, these are laws that mandate various businesses and such are closed on one particular day of the week (always Sunday, as far as I know).
Now, to me these laws are a clear violation of the First Amendment, as it’s been done for blatantly religious purposes. It’s also, of course, a violation of the freedoms of buisiness to be open as they please (same thing with laws that force bars to close at a specific hour, something I also oppose).
The writer of the article seems to believe these laws are a good thing, cause they gaurantee workers have Sundays off. He seems to view them as secular, rather that religious in nature, and therefore not a problem for the First Amendment. Well, ok, if they’re secular in nature, why not make it Wednesday that’s the mandatory day off? No, that wouldn’t do, because Sunday is the day people go to church. Therefore, it’s religious in nature and motivation.
The writer also seems to be under the mistaken impression that workers need to have Sunday in particular off. Not so. Yes, it’s nice to have Saturday and Sunday off, at least it is for most people. Recently my job moved me to those days off, but not without a lot of protest from me, cause I liked the system I had before, where I had Sunday/Monday off. I didn’t need nor want Saturday off.
Of course under federal law, workers get days off anyhow. You can only work 40 hours a week without being paid overtime. Most employers don’t want to do that, so they give their employees two days a week off. It’s not always two consecutive days, and it might be a Tuesday/Wednesday combo, but they get it. Heck, I get three days off now. Yes, my complaining paid off, and I get Sat/Sun/Tue off now (I work four 10 hour shifts a week, and wanted to make sure I had a weekday off to be home for UPS, you see. I order lots and lots of stuff from Amazon).
I also find myself wondering the following; if everyone has Sunday off, what the hell are you going to do on Sundays? If everyone is off, the stores, movie theatres, museums, etc, would all be closed. Any place that requires employees wouldn’t be open (I’m sure there would be exceptions for hospitals, fire departments, police officers and the like. Want to bet there’d be one for churches, too?). I don’t know about you, but being forced to basically spend my day at home and not have any other options doesn’t sound like a good idea.
Lastly, this concept interferes with the rights of businesses to make money. There’s no legit reason why a business should be forced to have specific business hours (this includes bars). You can find people out there willing to work any hours of the day, and I see no reason why companies should close down on specific days or at specific times, unless they want to. While I’m all in favor of labor laws, I think they should be sensible, and Blue Laws just aren’t.
