Yolanda Díaz, Spain's labour minister, recently implied that the Socialist- In her humourless zeal, Díaz has forgotten that not everything that happens in a
country is the government's business - Deregulation has proved to be a powerful stimulant to the growth of Spain's hospitality
industry, which is vital to the country's status as a tourism superpower. Lockdown
and other Covid- Spain's bars and restaurants open and close when they want, often on a maddeningly unpredictable schedule. The last two times I've tried to book at my favourite neighbourhood 'mesón' on a Thursday night, for example, it was inexplicably closed |
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(meaning that both of those weeks it was open just two evenings out of the seven). Annoying as this was, it also demonstrated the high degree of autonomy exercised by businesses in the Spanish catering sector. In small towns and villages, most establishments close for one or even two days a week to give their staff a proper weekend off. It might be objected to that bars and restaurants in big cities can't do this because of greater competition and commercial pressure. If so, then it's up to their management teams to better arrange shift and staffing schedules to make sure that nobody works a seven day week or excessively long shifts. If Díaz's pointless suggestion became law, it wouldn't eradicate the late- In other words, they'd resort to Prohibition- |