--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Retailing in Europe is tightly regulated, both by
> law and custom, and
> wages are significantly higher than in the U.S.
>
> When I was in Amsterdam a few years ago, I needed a
> band-aid and some
> batteries. In New York, that retail task would
> require a walk of no
> more than a few blocks to the nearest drugstore,
> supermarket, or
> deli. For the batteries, a newsstand even. (It'd be
> longer in parts
> of Brooklyn, but I was in the heart of Amsterdam, so
> Manhattan would
> be a more valid comparison.) In A'dam, I had to walk
> about 10 minutes
> to a pharmacy to get the band-aids, and then another
> 10 minutes to a
> record store to get the batteries. The supermarket
> near our hotel had
> neither, of course. We may not have a decent welfare
> state here, but
> we sure do have cheap and plentiful consumer goods!
[WS:] True. That explain, for example, why most retail establishments in EU are closed on Sundays - which I find quite annoying. But regulation does not explain huge price differences, since prices are not regulated, I imagine.
As to sitting vs standing behind the cash register, regulation may have something to do with it, EU has it, US does not. But then you would see variation in the US retail outlets - some would allow stitting other would not. Yet you do not see any variation, and I do not see any good economic reasons why employers would not provide sitting acommodations to their cashiers, e.g. as a token gesture that does not cost them much.
Wojtek
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