Work, Sunday rest is sacred. Even for robots?

MILANO – Il sacred Sunday rest Is this a rule written in stone for robots too? The question bounces from Germania and, as extreme as it may seem, it is legitimate if we consider the direction in which industrial and commercial automation is moving. Which also concerns large-scale distribution, i.e. supermarkets. We are also seeing cases, which are currently borderline cases, in Italy, such as the Esselunga in the former Expo area of ​​Milan (Mind district) which we have described here.

German history rebounds from Financial Times and concerns the regional chain Tegutwhich he launched four years ago fully automated points of sale. A case that clashed with the century-old rule – of constitutional rank and validated by the courts – of Sunday rest. Which leads most German shops to close their shutters on the last day of the week.

In December, a court of the State of Hesse (Hesse) he had in fact declared that the Sunday rest it must be a valid principle even if there are no humans working in the points of sale (there are 40 small surface ones automated by the chain, which also has 300 traditional ones).

Speaking to the City newspaper, the chain’s number one, Thomas Stäb, spoke of a “grotesque” constraint, comparing supermarkets to a “machine” that distributes products with the small variation that you enter inside. During the week, these mini-supermarkets are manned for a few hours. But not on Sundays: you can independently collect a thousand “basic necessities” items, milk or butter, fruit and vegetables, condoms and pregnancy tests.

The Verdi union has firmly opposed liberalization for years. Partly because he maintains that staff rest must always be guaranteed. And partly because he fears a chain effect: the opening of a dangerous hole that sooner or later will make the principle of Sunday rest capitulate.

Some residents heard from Ft he is against the court ban and finds the formula convenient, to quickly recover “something you forgot about during the week”. Finding better alternatives than those available at a petrol station or similar.

But one also took the side of the unions unusual Catholic-Protestant alliancewhich aims to defend the status quo and insists on the sacredness of Sunday by recalling the millenary origin that dates back to the emperor Constantine.

A war, that of religion, which Stäb certainly has no intention of waging and indeed underlines that in one case the owner of the walls of an automatic convenience store is a parish, whose parish priest did not have much to object to. But there is also another mortal sin that the chain does not want to incur: lose 25-30% of sales, which is the brunt of Sunday business.

For the moment, Tegut has put its expansion plans in its home state on stand-by, but has continued to keep its stores open elsewhere such as in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg: the ruling only applies in Hesse. Where we are discussing a law that derogates from the general principle specifically for automated points. The game is still open.