What do you do on your day off? I spend time with my family, but I also run errands. The basic problem I see with this article is that if everyone is off on Sunday, no one will be able to do anything. If you can't do grocery shopping at night or on weekends, are you supposed to spend time starving with your family? The reason stores are open more on weekends is because more people shop then (duh). As a result, more people also have to work then. It's a bit of a vicious cycle. Many smaller stores solve this problem by closing on Monday (conveniently also the day for observed holidays) or Wednesday instead of on the weekend.

I think a much smarter solution would be to create an environment that encourages a predictable, consolidated workweek rather than a constantly shifting mess of hours spread over the week. I don't claim to be a labor expert, but I'm sure there is a combination of incentives and laws that can make it easier for employees and employers to manage work hours without regulating everyone to death.

Well, one I don't think that the suggestion was that all business should be open only 9-5, Monday through Friday. Clearly that would be a disaster. The idea is that there would be less time that business would be open on on the weekends. I'm from Massachusetts, and I'm only 30, but I clearly remember when I was a kid that a lot of businesses weren't open on Sundays, and of those that were, they were only open limited hours, usually 12-6. A lot of retail stores are still like that, though not all. Supermarkets are open all day, but they pay time and a half to employees regardless of how many other hours a worker has worked (ie, if you only work 15 hours Monday through Saturday, you still get time and a half on Sunday). While I'm sure there are probably people in Massachusetts who are starving for varied reasons, I never met a single person in my childhood who was starving because the grocery stores closed at 9 on weeknights and had limited hours on Sundays.

As for anyone who thinks that anything and everything should be available when they're not working- don't you think that those workers might want to spend time with their families? If kids are at school during the day and you have to work 3-11, when exactly are you supposed to be able to spend time with them? And we wonder why so many terrible things are happening in our society...