Shops with reading rooms or rental shops? ‘It’s against the law’

after networking Sunday trading ban They were very creative and took advantage of loopholes in the regulations, making trade bans a fiction. At first, the stores were converted into post offices, so regulations were sealed to ensure that supermarkets and department stores were not open on Sundays.

The amendment to the law did not discourage shops from looking for new ways to circumvent the regulations. and yes The Intermarche Institutions has become a reading club. At a Prikomarsch store in Lower Silesia Bicycle rentals are open. The owner explained on social media that “It allows the possibility of obtaining additional income for anyone who wants.”

The Dino supermarket chain decided not to view the competition negatively. New areas of activity were introduced into the company’s articles of association: rental and leasing of recreational and sports equipment, operation of cultural facilities.

Why these? Shops that trade on Sunday use the article of the law that completely excludes the trade ban.Commercial establishments in establishments operating in the fields of culture, sports, education, tourism and entertainment“.

The money.pl portal reached a legal opinion prepared at the end of July by two lawyers from Jagiellonian University. This opinion has been prepared at the request of NSZZ “Solidarność”, the National Secretariat for Trade and Insurance of Banks.

In order to work on Sundays and public holidays, the location and the factory must have two relationships. Spatial relationship – the facility should be located in the factory premises, and functional relationship – the purpose of operating a business facility is to increase the usability and attractiveness of the factory. In this system, the factory remains the main and superior unit, and commercial activity is of secondary importance – we read in the opinion of lawyers.

– With reference to the recently applied practices of opening shops, in relation to readers’ clubs established in their establishments, this should be mentioned in the light of the view that: This is illegal behaviour. Apart from the joint operation of a single large-area building by the same entrepreneur, the “retail outlet” and the “factory” do not show any functional connections. Here it is impossible to note the subordination of the “commercial organization” to the “enterprise”. Both units, if permitted, conduct independent activities “side by side”. Being able to buy groceries doesn’t improve the functionality of the reading roomIt does not increase the usefulness or attractiveness of the latter, argue attorneys Mateusz Szurman and Łukasz Duśko, PhD students in the School of Law and Management at Jagiellonian University.

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Everything indicates that the celebration of the ban on trading on Sunday will only be loud, because the largest chain in Poland – Biedronka – is trying to open its stores on non-commercial days. Although the company is silent and has not answered its questions about this, casual employees admit that the chain is preparing to open stores.

Not all employees like this Pedronka plan. Money.pl also accessed A letter of protest from a chain store employee. “We strongly oppose working on non-commercial Sundays” – they write. I threaten it If their opinion is not taken into account, they will protest.

Pedronka’s main competitors are currently watching the chain’s activities closely, but the opening of stores owned by Jeronimo Martins Polska on Sunday may force them to act.

Not only did we ask Pedroncka, but we also asked the chains Dino, Intermarsh and Carrefour about Sunday’s trade and comment on the legal opinion. Until the article was published, we did not receive any response.

On August 4, Solidarity’s trade switched to National Labor Inspectorate Around Increasing the number of checks in shops Regarding compliance with the Sunday Trade Restriction Act. This is a reaction to the information that Pedronka will open some of its stores next Sunday. In the opinion of the unionists, it would constituteA serious violation of the law.”

Retail chains are once again trying to bypass the Sunday Trade Act. If this does not elicit a decisive response from the National Labor Inspectorate, it will mean that we live in a country where we can break the law and exploit workers with impunity, says Alfred Pojarra, head of the National Secretariat of Commercial Banks and Insurance. NSZZ “Solidarność”.

Solidarno wants to conduct inspections at individual retail outlets that circumvent regulations multiple times, every Sunday.

A one-time violation of the provisions of the law regulating trading on Sundays is considered a crime. If the situation is repeated and the law is persistently violated, we are already dealing with a crime for it More severe financial penalties, up to one million zlotys – Poojara explains. When it is a one-time inspection, he adds, the store owner “simply pays a fine of 1,000 to 1,000 PLN and continues to break the law.”

We also asked the Polish Trade and Distribution Organization to comment on the legal opinion’s conclusion on circumventing the trade ban, but it did not decide to do so, referring only to individual stores. The head of POHiD, Renata Juszkiewicz, stated in the pages of the Wiadomości Handlowe.pl portal that “The law allows the retail outlet to be converted into a semi-reading room. Therefore, operators who decide to do this act in accordance with the regulations in force in Poland “

National Labor Inspectorate This year, 350 inspections of retail outlets are planned. Inspectors to check, among other things, whether regulations relating to work performed under civil law contracts are not violated in commercial enterprises. In addition to these scheduled visits, the inspectors will also check compliance with the trade ban on Sunday.