In its pure form, capitalism has no use for religion, because it interferes with doing business. For them, everything is focused on profit-making through production and trade, and peripheral things like religion and family life must change and adapt to suit the money-making process; especially today where the largely Christian West (where capitalism origi-nated) is losing ground to the largely non-Christian East.

"The obstacle to Jamaica's advancement", they would tell us, "is this silly and backward custom of reserving a day for religious worship" (whether Saturday or Sunday) "on which no servile work should be performed. How can we run our businesses when so many in the work force refuse to work on two of the seven days of the week?

Flexibility

"What we want is the flexibility to require our staff to work on the days when we want them to work. We will agree that the normal work week should last for 40 hours, and that any time over that should be considered overtime; but we want the right to specify the days and time that add up to 40 hours. We want each work day to be able to go up to 10 or 12 hours without overtime, so that the work week can be shortened to four days - any four days we choose.

"And we want to abolish foolish and backward things like shift premium for night work, and double-time and triple-time pay for work on weekends. These are modern days. We have to compete with the Chinese and the Singaporeans. We have to abolish all these archaic customs.

"We have sensitive machinery to operate, and we can't shut them off because people want to go to church. We have goods to sell, and we want to open 24 -7. Let's get Jamaica into the modern world, into the 21st century by making Saturday and Sunday just like any other working day."

This week, Labour Minister, Pearnel Charles announced that the proposal to imple-ment a flexi work week will be taken before Parliament in a few days, and so the time has come. What sort of provisions will be in the proposal? Let us look at the Government's draft Green Paper on Proposals for the Introduction of Flexible Work Arrange-ments, and I quote:

"The proposal for the introduction of Flexible Work Arrangements covers the following strategies for implementation:

1. The incorporation of all seven days as normal work days.

2. The work day to consist of a maximum of 10 or 12 hours.

3. The work week to consist of 40 hours.

4. Overtime would be earned after 40 hours of work within the work week."

And it goes on. The employee has no right to say which day they want as their day off, say, to go to church, and so Sunday (and Saturday) will become a day just like any another day.

Let me quote some more of the Government's draft Green Paper:

"To cope with short- and medium-term fluctuations in demand, suppliers want to hire people who will work variable hours on demand."

"The introduction of Flexible Work Arrangements is considered vital to increase productivity, efficiency and competitiveness by the employers. The Government is committed to economic growth, job creation and increased investments.

"The more things change, the more they remain the same!" This is how things were 1700 years ago. There was a seven-day work week, and no official state-sponsored day of rest. Whoever wished could close their business for whatever reason (and thereby lose income), but that was their choice. In those days, Christians would worship early on Sunday morning so that they could go to work when the sun rose. Sunday was a normal working day in the Roman Empire.

Political authority

Until March 7 in the year 321 when the Emperor Constantine (who had converted to Christianity) declared Sunday to be the official day of rest in his empire; all public offices were to be closed, and produce markets were banned. Constantine believed that his success at government and in battle was due to his new religion, and he used his political authority to elevate the Christian day of worship to be a day of rest.

The Jamaican Government of our day espouses a new religion, and is going to use its political power to overturn what Constantine did so many centuries ago. And when Parliament passes the act, it will be placed before our new governor general for his assent.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com