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Dickensian bubble world
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From David Warr.
AS the owner of a local business I resent hugely the comments expressed in your paper by Mr Corbel that the Jersey Chamber of Commerce is ‘demanding that staff go back to work the day after Christmas’.
Despite being a member of the Chamber, I have received no such demand and incidentally will be closing my business alongside a number of other locally owned businesses on the Saturday in question.
Mr Corbel would also do well to read the 1951, 1952 and 2009 laws which clearly outline the rules for both public and bank holidays, but of course these weren’t around in the Dickensian world that Mr Corbel so vividly describes.
Interestingly enough the internet wasn’t around in 1843, the year in which Scrooge was written. It’s estimated that 5.24 million people will log on to shop over the internet on Christmas Day alone. That’s more than the total number of people who’ll go to Church on the same day, and incidentally it’s estimated that they’ll spend around £104 million.
The internet trades 24/7 regardless of ‘official’ bank holidays or, for that matter, any bank holidays at all; the very internet that no doubt many of Mr Corbel’s members use over the weekend when, inconveniently, local shops are closed. The ‘cheap’ internet which erodes local jobs, the very jobs Mr Corbel wants to protect.
Let Mr Corbel be thankful for what we do have, highly restrictive Sunday trading laws; laws that have long been lost in the UK to the detriment of local communities and quality family time; laws on minimum wages; employment contracts that protect the rights of workers.
Given his knowledge of history Mr Corbel will no doubt remember the story of King Canute, who, upon learning that his flattering courtiers claimed he was ‘so great, he could command the tides of the sea to go back’, had his throne carried to the seashore and sat on it as the tide came in, commanding the waves to advance no further. The point being that he was a realist and knew his own limitations.
Jersey’s business owners are not some ‘grasping, scraping and clutching’ group of individuals; they too are realists living in a highly competitive global world – a world in which the rights of millions of workers are trampled on to provide cheap goods for, yes, even us here in Jersey.
If Mr Corbel wants to be taken seriously by the business community, he should fight the battles that protect our community, the ones that ensure we have a strong economy that provides jobs for all; a fair wage for a fair day’s work. If instead he continues to live in some Dickensian bubble world he’ll be doing his members and the community a great disservice. Canute’s tide stops for no one.
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