.
Two years in, the present administration still seems confused over what it wants for the economy – does it want to raise the standards of living of the working class or does it want to energise the economy so that all parties concerned benefit?
Whatever the choice, one thing is clear: consumers must spend more and in order to do that they must earn more. A vicious circle, which may not be all that vicious if you consider that private and public earnings are increasingly arriving from the services sector (shipping, financial, education, health) and not relying too much on the volatile tourism-related sectors of hotels and construction.
But when the Ministry of Labour starts talking about reducing shop hours and abolishing Sunday trading in tourist areas, this could take Cyprus back into the Dark Ages.
The only argument we could find against keeping shops open on Sundays is to regulate the labour market in order to ensure that bosses do not abuse their employees. In reality, however, there is no abuse and anyone who doesn’t want to work on Sundays can stay home and earn less. Simple really.
The real beneficiaries of the drive to strangle Sunday shopping (and drastically reduce the spending power of the Cypriot consumer) are the trade unions that, having total control over the civil service, banks, insurance companies and semi-government organisations, now want to claw into the private sector as well.
They contributed to the collapse of any manufacturing sector Cyprus ever had and now they want to destroy the retail trade.
Unfortunately, we seem to enter a new election phase as soon as another one ends and anyone in power has to rely on voter support from the unionised masses, evident in the latest inability of President Christofias to tell civil servants to shut up, do their work and start earning what they deserve, ie. less than they are paid today.
Another obstacle in the way of keeping shops open on Sunday (and extending the rule to all of Cyprus to benefit all taxpaying consumers) is the association of small and independent shop-owners, who cannot be bothered with competition and are not interested in hiring more staff over longer shifts.
Trouble is, officials at the Ministry of Labour tend to listen more to unions and conservative shopkeepers, rather than those who employ the majority of the island’s workforce and drive the economy.
Perhaps sniffing fewer mushrooms and air model glue would help them see the real world out there.
