Shopping on Thanksgiving

[howeird]

I posted this graphic on FB,




and got tomes written against it by some of my friends.

One rant was from a friend who is extremely close to his family both emotionally and physically. He says it is un-American to work on this holiday, which one should spend with family. Others claim that it is slavery to force workers to work on this holiday.

But here I am with no family nearby, an atheist who objects to the religious roots of this holiday, who has in the past been forced to take the day off without pay (contractors don't generally get paid if they don't work) when there is work to be done. Silicon Valley is also packed with people from other countries who are fine with working on a day which means nothing to them, and who want to shop.

The irony of stores being closed on this day is this is the day when the most people need to do some last-minute shopping for food and related things because the tradition demands big dinners with lots of guests.

No one is a slave in this country. No one is forced to work for a company which requires them to work on Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or Divali or Yom Kippur. When I moved to Seattle in 1965 it was illegal for stores to be open Sunday. There were plenty of people who wanted to work on Sunday, some so they could earn extra $$ and some so they could take a weekday off, but most who did not fear the Christian god's wrath. Somehow, the economy didn't collapse when that law was overturned, nobody was struck by lightning inside an open business.

And yes, rich people get richer when their business is open on a holiday. But so do their employees.

Comments

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

Actually, studies have shown our wealth, as a nation, is shifting heavily to the rich side, and overall the employees are getting screwed.