The churches don’t have enough political influence to keep Sunday a rest day. That we still have a mostly closed down Sunday (minus vital and emergency services and recreation) is union influence. IG Metall and Ver.di would skin the SPD alive if they were to propose abolishing it.
Consider the alternative: All your friends have different days off, so organising a grill party becomes a once in a summer opportunity when all your days off happen to align.
On the contrary there’s a lot of shift work in industry, especially IG Metall’s “core” clientele, metalworkers. A blast furnace don’t care whether it’s Sunday you need workers to work it, 24/7 – with extra extra pay for night shifts and Sundays. But IG Metall also covers the engineering side and with that IT workers, plenty of white-collar jobs included it’s a really big tent.
The churches don’t have enough political influence to keep Sunday a rest day. That we still have a mostly closed down Sunday (minus vital and emergency services and recreation) is union influence. IG Metall and Ver.di would skin the SPD alive if they were to propose abolishing it.
Consider the alternative: All your friends have different days off, so organising a grill party becomes a once in a summer opportunity when all your days off happen to align.
Isn’t IG Metall mostly a manufacturing workers union? Those jobs usually get weekends off either way, no?
On the contrary there’s a lot of shift work in industry, especially IG Metall’s “core” clientele, metalworkers. A blast furnace don’t care whether it’s Sunday you need workers to work it, 24/7 – with extra extra pay for night shifts and Sundays. But IG Metall also covers the engineering side and with that IT workers, plenty of white-collar jobs included it’s a really big tent.
Makes sense, thanks for the info