Like every self-respecting April 25th (and May 1st), also this year in Milan there is no shortage of controversy over the closing/opening of shops on the day dedicated to Liberation Day. This anniversary is in fact deeply felt by the workers, as well as precisely that of a week after May 1st. And the controversy inflames, more than for Christmas and Easter, or for a normal Sunday of rest.
This year more, following the liberalization decree which allowed shops to remain open 24 hours a day and 24 days a year, many shops in the Milanese capital have already declared that they will not lower their shutters. Good opportunity to fight the crisis and maybe give some more work. But it hasn't been interpreted quite like that, even since mayor Giuliano Pisapia, who intervened in the matter personally: "There are holidays that everyone has the right to celebrate - said the mayor of Milan - and in addition to the religious ones, there are civil ones, including April 25 and May Day, which they must be celebrated by participating in events and demonstrations”. And this, in Pisapia's opinion, "contrasts with the opening of shops".
But is the April 25 holiday only valid for commerce? Why can tram drivers, polygraphs, nurses, policemen, railway workers and communications workers safely work even on Liberation Day and no one has anything to object to? In reality - comments Dario Di Vico in the "Corriere della Sera" - that of the mayor and the union is pure masochism that comes from “a retro vision of consumption considered voluptuous".
The mayor and the unions have even signed a memorandum of understanding which considers the holiday of April 25th intangible at the opening of the shops but have not found adherence in the coop who, despite the common left-wing political matrix, have decided to open their supermarkets and shopping centers also on Liberation Day.
