The committee has today considered a proposal to designate Belfast district (or the city centre) as a ‘Holiday Resort’, which would allow large shops to extend their Sunday trading hours on up to 18 Sundays in any calendar year between 1 March and 30 September (excluding Easter Sunday).
 
Usdaw had urged Belfast City Council to step away from their plans to extend Sunday trading hours and engage in a ‘weekend summit’ that would take a detailed look at what the city has to offer residents, visitors and tourists over the whole of the weekend. 50.7% of all respondents to the council’s own consultation and 94% of Usdaw members are opposed to longer Sunday trading.
 
Mike Aylward – Usdaw Divisional officer who says: “We welcome the councillors not rushing to a decision on Sunday trading today, it is right that they look carefully at the evidence. We presented our case for opposition to the committee and we are grateful to the councillors for the hearing they gave us.
 
“The city’s businesses are split on the proposal, with small independent retailers opposed and some larger stores supporting. Our members are overwhelmingly opposed and we know that view is shared by many in the community who want Sunday to remain special. So this is a crucial decision for councillors.
 
“The current Sunday trading arrangements are a fair compromise, which has worked well for over 20 years, and gives everyone a little bit of what they want. Retailers can trade, customers can shop, staff can work; whilst Sunday remains a special day, different to other days, and shopworkers can spend some time with their family.
 
“We remain hopeful that the city council will value and maintain that fair compromise, as they did last year when councillors decisively rejected longer Sunday.”
 
Results of Usdaw's Survey of Members: In March 2018 Usdaw repeated a survey (originally conducted in November 2016) of a representative group of 885 of our members working in retail in Northern Ireland. The results of this survey clearly demonstrate the strength of feeling of Usdaw members, and retail workers, on this subject:

• 94% of respondents thought that shops should not open longer on Sundays (an increase of 9 percentage points since the 2016 survey).
• 80% of respondents currently work at least some Sundays whilst over a quarter work every Sunday.
• Almost two thirds of respondents said that they already come under pressure to work on Sundays.
• Over half of respondents have some form of caring responsibilities, either for children or sick or elderly relatives of these, over three quarters work some Sundays already and over two-thirds are under pressure to work on Sundays. 49% find it difficult to arrange suitable alternative care whilst they are at work.

Notes for editors:
 
Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK's fifth biggest and the fastest growing trade union with over 430,000 members. Membership has increased by more than 28% over the decade. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemicals and other trades.
 
For Usdaw press releases visit: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/news and you can follow us on Twitter @UsdawUnion