“Uneaten people!” The cashiers described the experiences of November 17

Although Czechs love to shop and social networks are abuzz with pictures of overflowing baskets, there are times when they turn their backs on their favorite stores. This situation occurred on Thursday. The Lidl chain has announced that it will be open on the national holiday of November 17.

Just like other hypermarkets.

The provisions of the Act on retail sales hours, which prohibits sales on certain public holidays, do not apply to the Day of the Fight for Freedom and Democracy, which we celebrate on November 17. Shops remain open during this holiday, including larger establishments with a sales area of ​​over 200 square meters and others such as bazaars and pawnshops or junkyards.

Some disliked the open shops and stood up to the cashiers. But they were entitled to a higher salary. “Yes, our employees will receive a supplement in the amount of 100 percent of their average earnings for working on a holiday according to current legislation,” Lidl’s press spokeswoman Iveta Barabášová told the editors. Iva Pavlousková responded similarly for Tesco. “Yes, employees are paid extra for working on public holidays, which is in line with current legislation.”

Judgment Day

After the release of the material, several cashiers contacted us and we interviewed them on various topics. The primary focus, however, was Friday shopping. All of them (after Tesco, Lidl and Kaufland) called it “judgment day”. People are said to have stockpiled heavily, even though there was no rational reason for it.

We are talking about branches in Prague and the Central Bohemia region.

Marie S., a cashier at Tesco, literally said that “the people were just blown away”. Their baskets were said to be often completely full. Dana V. from Kaufland spoke similarly. “Since morning, God willing,” she remarked. In this context, the editors also looked at social networks. One of Penny’s sales assistants also confided in what it looked like on November 17th.

“Thanks to the fact that I am a saleswoman, I served an unfed people who, since Wednesday, had the impression that they were going to die if they did not bring home supplies for at least ten days. But I don’t need to spell it out for you, you know that you didn’t give your employees time off, so we spent the Day of the Fight for Freedom mainly raising your standard of living,” she wrote.

We asked individual chains about their sales on November 17.

“It was a public holiday and the sales were commensurate with the day. There was no more significant change than on other holidays. We have limited opening hours in some stores,” said Lukáš Němčík for the COOP group.

“Customer purchases on Friday, November 17, were approximately at the level of last year,” added Tomáš Kubík, Penny’s press spokesman.

The other hypermarkets did not comment.