SHOPKEEPERS’ Union POVEK hopes to scupper government plans to allow Saturday and Wednesday afternoon shopping and abolish the traditional afternoon siesta, warning it will bring its members out on strike against the measures, which it says will drive small shops out of business.
The Cabinet on Thursday approved a proposal abolishing the 1pm to 4 pm summer closing hours as well as Wednesday and Saturday afternoon closing.
The proposal will have to be passed by the House of Representatives.
POVEK’s secretariat will meet today to decide on measures to derail the government plan, union secretary general Melios Georgiou told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.
“At the moment, we will not take strike measures, but if the bill passes through Parliament we will definitely take such action.”
POVEK’s Larnaca district secretary Stefanos Koursaris told the Mail: “ If the government goes along with its plan, the small shop retailers will never be able to keep up with the competition. We will need to hire extra employees to keep a shop open from 8am to 9pm. We could never afford that, or the bigger bills such as electricity and heating. That would result in big stores who can afford the extra burden working much longer hours than us, and putting us out of business.”
But Christos Orphanides, owner of Orphanides Hypermarkets, is one hundred per cent behind the new plan and thinks it is humiliating for shops to be working on the current timetable.
“The new schedule will serve the interests of employees who at the moment have no spare time at all to spend with their families. We would simply put employees on morning and evening shifts. The plan would give them time to go shopping and in other places they need to, working from 8am to1pm and from 4pm to 7pm. For a working mother who lives quite far from her work, it would be much more convenient to work on a shift from say 7am to 3 pm rather than go back and forth to end up home at 8pm.
“Furthermore, the current time-table is humiliating for the Cyprus Republic and for us as citizens. It is unthinkable in the 21st century for shops to close for siesta time and for Saturday afternoon.”
Orphanides argued the new scheme would serve consumers, as most of them only have spare time to shop from 2pm onwards.
“We love the small shops,” he said, “and we think they will do well if they work professionally, based on feasibility studies.”
But he added: “the days of protection are over.”
Marks and Spencer’s Nicosia Operation Manager Koullis Artemis said his store was in favour of the plan.
“I think we might have to hire some extra employees. It is true some will make a profit and some will suffer losses. But for small shops it does not have to be all black and white. They can shut down during hours when business is really slow and stay open at busy hours,” he said, though he opposed the idea of scrapping the siesta time during the hot months of July and August.
