A POLISH law banning almost all trade on Sundays has taken effect, with large supermarkets and most other retailers closed for the first time since liberal shopping laws were introduced in the 1990s.

The change is stirring up a range of emotions in a country where some feel workers are exploited but many others see consumer freedom as one of the most tangible benefits of the free market era.

The law was proposed by the trade union Solidarity, which says employees deserve Sundays off, and found the support of the conservative and pro-Catholic ruling party, Law and Justice.

The influential Catholic church, to which more than 90 percent of Poles belong, has welcomed the change.

The new law at first bans trade on two Sundays per month, rising to three Sundays a month from 2019 and finally all Sundays from 2020, except for seven exceptions before the Easter and Christmas holidays.

Pro-business opposition parties view the change as an attack on commercial freedom and warn that it will lead to a loss of jobs, and in particular hurt students who only have time to work on the weekends. The All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions also opposes it, arguing that it will push employees to work longer hours Fridays and Saturdays and that the work will be harder because there will be more customers.

Poles are among the hardest working citizens in the European Union and some complain that Sundays are sometimes the only days they have free time to shop. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), only Greek people put in longer working hours than Poles in the 28-member bloc. The average Polish employee worked 1,928 hours in 2016, according to OECD statistics.

In Hungary, a ban on Sunday trade imposed in 2015 was so unpopular that authorities repealed it the next year.

(SD-Agencies)