Retail on Thanksgiving
When I was in Boston last week, I read a Globe article on how various national retailers scheduled their Black Friday opening this year at midnight…and then quickly had to change plans when someone told them doing so in Massachusetts would be illegal.
You see, in Massachusetts, working on Thanksgiving (and I believe Christmas) is generally not allowed (there are exceptions for restaurants and such). So opening at midnight would require workers to clock in on Thanksgiving to set up, and that is illegal. They’ve all moved their opening times forward to around 1am, store depending.
While many scoffed at these blue laws interfering with the private market place, I applaud this particular regulation. Quite frankly, the US has a horrible work culture when it comes to giving people time off, and a huge portion of this is how retail workers and all their support staff (cleaners etc) are generally invisible to huge portions of the population.