I wouldn't say "behind" in that context. I do appreciate the convenience of 24h stores, but I don't see them as a progress for workers rights.

I generally agree with you, but it's utterly ridiculous that supermarkets etc. close at 8 already in some states (e.g. Bavaria). It would make more sense to keep themmopen until at least 9 or 10.

If the owner of a store wants to open it for 24 hours and he or employees are willing to work, how is that bad for workers rights? What’s bad for workers rights are people that would like the freedom to work a late shift or early shift but can’t because some do-gooder is trying to “protect” grown adults from making their own decisions.

> If the owner of a store wants to open it for 24 hours and he or employees are willing to work, how is that bad for workers rights?

That would be fine, but what is going to happen is that many workers will have to work night shifts unwillingly. It's bad for their physical and mental health.

Suppose you have a town with two stores. First store is willing to open 24 hours. Second store may have to do the same to compensate the loss of customers, and the workers there may have to work night shift even if they don't want to (I actually witnessed it first hand in my neighbourhood).

This is called a negative externality, and it is a well-known defect of free market. Even though you would think that opening a store 24h only impacts you and your customers, it negatively impacts other people.

This is a subjective opinion, but I would argue that the convenience of having 24h stores isn't worth the cost for the workers. Unfortunately, I think that I'm in the minority and that eventually we'll cross that line in Europe too, and it'll be hard to go back.

Need to make sure that restocking is done during the day or the customers won't notice that you have to move large containers through the store!

I understand that most stores would see little traffic at night, but on the other hand they'd also not need full staff, and they absolutely could do all the maintenance work at night. It annoys me similarly as "everybody must have the same two days off". So inefficient.

Having the same days off for most people makes for a more cohesive society where people have more time to interact with each other. Or at least, that's the idea.

Knowing families where people have different working hours or working days, it really takes a toll on interpersonal relations.

I get that argument, but I do believe that it applies more so to a past idea of society where everybody is close to average, i.e. mostly families with children. It makes sense to time days off for adults with those of children. The same goes for school holidays being timed with harvest season because plenty of children had to help on the family farm etc.

That's not our current reality, the percentage of singles and childless couples is growing and they don't need to be timed with school hours.

Adding flexibility would make everything run more smoothly. Right now we're having all the commercial traffic on 5/7 days and all the leisure time traffic on 2/7 days. Offices are empty 2/7 days.

Distributing that more evenly would benefit everyone. Less traffic during rush hour, less overrun parks on your day off, less crowded super markets and packages wouldn't need to be considered lost if they're diverted to the local branch where queues are usually longer than those in front of apple stores when new iphones get released.

My local (small, urban) supermarket isn’t even 24 hours (7am to 11pm, I think) and is constantly restocking throughout the day anyway. If sales volume is high enough, that’s presumably necessary.