Campaigners and trades unions have spoken out about the playing
of Christmas music in shops over an ever-extending festive period
and the psychological effects that the repetitive tunes can have on
staff who have no choice but to listen to it.
"If people don't want it and if they have a negative response to
it and if they're exposed to something continually, the same songs
over and over, it's no different to being tortured, it's the same
reaction, the body will react in the same way," said Val Weedon,
national coordinator of the UK Noise Association.
"We are asking government to investigate this particular area
and to look into whether it is something that the Health and Safety
Executive could take on board," said Weedon.
Shop workers' union Usdaw (Union of Shop, Distributive and
Allied Workers) says that it is ready to take action on the
issue.
"It's an issue that has been brought to our attention," said
Usdaw's Paul Clarke. "What we're saying to managers is if Christmas
carols are being played on the same CD repeatedly that could create
an unhealthy working environment for people."
"Our first port of call would be our officials or reps talking
to managers and saying we're sick of listening to Little Drummer
Boy for the 15th time today could we change the CD over?" he
said.
The union says that it recommends that staff first negotiate
informally with managers over the issue, but that it will back any
members who want to take the issue further. "If anyone did want to
take it any further we would be happy to do so," he said. "It must
drive people to distraction and whether there's a health and safety
issue or whether it's actionable it doesn't create a very healthy
working environment particularly at what is the busiest time of the
year."
Employees who wanted to take a legal case would have limited
options, said Catherine Barker, an employment lawyer with Pinsent
Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW. "If the incessant Christmas
music does in fact make an employee ill they may try to bring a
claim in the civil courts for personal injury," she said.
"To make out a case the employee would need to show that the
employer had breached its duty of care to provide a safe working
environment by playing the music in the first place. The employee
would also need to show that their ill health was directly
attributable to the Christmas music, and not to any other cause.
The biggest hurdle for the employee would probably be to
demonstrate that his or her illness was reasonably foreseeable by
the employer. This would involve the employer being on some form of
notice that the particular employee had some vulnerability to
Christmas music, the ill health in question, or both."
"A marginally more plausible argument may be for an employee to
argue that his or her working conditions have substantially changed
to his or her detriment by the music being played and that this
amounts to a fundamental breach of contract entitling him or her to
resign and claim constructive unfair dismissal," said Barker.
"Whether or not playing festive music during the festive period
could really be said to amount to a fundamental breach of contract
is highly debateable."
One man was so disgruntled about piped music that he decided not
to seek redress under existing law, but to create a new one. Life
peer Lord Beaumont of Whitley proposed a bill earlier this year
which would outlaw piped music altogether in public places related
to health and transport. Beaumont believes that it can cause real
damage.
"[It would] Certainly have an adverse effect on me, it would
drive me to murder I would have thought. I'm not saying necessarily
that it would be physically harmful but it would be very annoying,
very distressing and something people shouldn't be made to put up
with," Beaumont told OUT-LAW.
"I think quite definitely that people who work in shops should
have certain rights not to have music permanently pumped into
them," said Beaumont.
The Health and Safety Executive is responsible for monitoring
and enforcing safety legislation in workplaces, but a spokesman
said that it does not regulate retail premises, which are monitored
by local authorities.
The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health said that it had
not come across any cases of Christmas music alone being a cause of
mental distress. "For an employee to seek redress specific to a
type of music, rather than volume, they would have to suffer health
effects independent of any other cause," said a spokesman. "As far
as we are aware, Christmas music alone has not been a cause of
occupational ill-health."
Nigel Rogers is the secretary of PipeDown, a campaign against
piped music. "We know that unwanted music is another noise, perhaps
a particularly pointed noise because it's got a message and it's
got a beat and a rhythm normally, so it affects people more than
you might think just a normal background noise would," said
Rogers.
"Any noise can cause a whole range of physical and psychological
abnormalities. In physical terms it can mean raised blood pressure,
cortazone disbalance and also depression of the immune system, in
fact it generally makes you ill, it causes stress, which is not at
all surprising. It is a psychological thing as well at the same
time," he said.
Shop workers have taken action in the past, some of it quite
radical. Czech workers once staged a walk out in protest at
Christmas music, while Austrian shop workers' union the GPA
(Gewerkschaft der Privatangestellten) mounted a campaign about the
music in 2003.
"When we started the campaign we wanted to change the reason
that playing of Christmas carols happened two months before
Christmas. It's not necessary we think," Gottfried Rieser, the man
behind the campaign at the GPA told OUT-LAW. "The shop workers come
to me and we talk about the problems in the shops and they told
them one of the biggest problems in the time before Christmas is
the playing of carols. We had meetings with the management of the
[shops] companies and they told me there is no problem, they didn't
see the problem."
"So we went to the broadcasters and newspapers and there was a
lot of people, we started a campaign and it was a good thing," said
Rieser. "Then the chairman of the board of Spar and I had a
meeting, he told me of course I am right the campaign was very
successful and he promised to me he won't play the music any more
than three weeks before Christmas."
Though the legal barrier for proving psychological distress due
to Christmas music would be high, the campaigners said they will
not give up.
"Noise is often called the forgotten pollutant; I think piped
music is the forgotten aspect of noise," said PipeDown's
Rogers.
"All we are asking for is that the staff be given some
opportunity to escape, maybe the music should be switched off at
certain times, maybe there should be areas of quiet where staff can
go during their breaks, it's not even regulated just now," said the
Noise Association's Weedon.
The Austrian example will give campaigners hope. "Today we
visited the shops and there were no Christmas songs, no carols. I'm
very proud about it," said Rieser.
