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Article: Closed on Sunday? Shopkeepers rebel; Two Sundays in a row, Germany's shopkeepers defied strict labor laws.(World)
- Article from:
- The Christian Science Monitor
- Article date:
- August 12, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 The Christian Science Publishing Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Eberhard Wolff stands, fuming, inside his mahogany-paneled luxury goods shop on Berlin's busy Potzdamer Platz.
"I have to get permission from the Bundestag [the German parliament] to open my shop when I want to," he says, lamenting tight state controls over business hours. "We must get rid of this ridiculous law."
Like hundreds of other retailers in this country of 80 million, Mr. Wolff, dubbed the "rebel of Potzdamer Platz" by the local media, is on a crusade to change Germany's strict rules on when a store must close.
Tight restrictions
Germany's labor laws are among the most restrictive in Europe. Britain and Sweden did away with ...