to wonder who can survive on 3 hour contracts/£19 a week.

[Darkesteyes]

Daily Mirror has done a massive expose on this and its bloody shocking reading. These contracts insist they be available at all times which means they cant earn elsewhere.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/argos-homebase-tesco-exploit-workers-3630972#.U4o47vX9AD0.twitter

It's normal life these days. Generally you lie and pray you don't get caught working elsewhere. You also have to accept you're not a proper human being.

No it is not a proper wage but as long as it gets the unemployment figures down.. Those people will be on the statistics as people who came out of unemployment and found employment under the current goverment.

It's the sort of thing I did as a student in a tourist cafe and as a SAHM who doesn't have to earn an income, but would like mkney to call ber own, it would be OK now (apart from no holidays).

But, it isn't a proper adult job, no NI/pensions, holiday and I assume sick pay is taking advantage big time of people who need all these things.

I've had years of this. the only way to survive is to take on two or three of these plus other stuff with flexible/pick your own hours (paper round, leaflet delivery, Avon/Bettaware, stuff that you can do from home such as proofreading or ironing or phone sex) and tax credits and lie a lot ie you're 'ill' when one job calls you in at short notice for a day you are committed to the other one...

I was on a zero hour contract when I did security. It's tough - you can be on roster for a week and never have a moment to call your own then the next week be off roster and not work at all. I used to work shifts back to back, meaning I'd do 5pm-4am, couple of hours sleep then 9am-5pm. You can't turn down work because that pisses off the duty manager, ensuring you are going to be off roster for the foreseeable future as "not reliable".

Carry your phone about with you as you can suddenly get a call "Dave can't make it in, can you take his shift? Be there in half an hour". That can happen at any time. Also, after being off-roster for two weeks I tried to apply for benefits and pointed out I don't get paid if I'm not rostered on. Their answer was "but you do when you are so you aren't entitled to anything". This being the rub - on roster I could work an insane amount of hours in a week, but of course if you are not working you don't get paid. So to say your income fluctuates is putting it mildly, and you can't predict anything.

I was a shockingly bad teacher, but strangely a quite good security person so I got more on roster weeks than off, but it's really no way to live. Taking other jobs - you can't because it means you are unavailable for work at certain times for what is basically a 24-7 job. You're living hand to mouth and you don't know if you'll be working from one week to the next. It's dependent on events, the whim of the duty manager, and everything else, from the weather to the amount of people rostered on.

I don't do it any more as I have become enamoured of actual wages on a reliable basis ;) but I always think politicians who go on about how zero hours contracts are "flexible for people with childcare responsibilities" and "an important part of our economy" should actually try it and see how "flexible" it is (and what happens if you turn down a shift) and how much fun it is to be on one. I enjoyed my job, liked my workmates, hated the fact I could never predict my income and never plan for the future.

I can't help feeling that with the decline of Unions,those who join plus laws previous governments have passed, has meant that workers' terms and conditions have been eroded. Time for a change I hope, start roaring!

It would be impossible for parents to arrange childcare around this Because from what ive seen on here the childcare still has to be paid for whether there is work or not.

Its a disgusting way to treat employees.

this is why some people stay on benefits its the only way to guarantee the rent is paid its nothing to do with laziness its simply the fact you cant survive on zero hour contracts and those are all that's offered i can see us packing our bags and moving again due to lack of work but my daughter needs to take her gcses so where are our choices

Has it already been made that you have to take zero hours contracts or lose benefits, or is that only being discussed?

They should be banned.

Joano only being discussed I believe.

Zero hours contracts are appalling. The recession was an excuse for many companies and employers to rub their hands with glee and start to squeeze the workers. Tighter and tighter. Till workers have no rights, no guarantees, no stability, no security, very little pay, no life.

I feel very strongly about these so-called 'contracts' where everything is in the employer's favour. Zero hours means zero sick pay, zero pension, zero life.

How anyone can actually live on them is beyond me - it must literally be hand-to-mouth. You certainly can't get a mortgage, and surely it must be hard to even hold onto a rental property?

They are awful for people who are looking for more hours I agree.

But they worked well at my old place of work for students who went away for uni and wanted to work for us in the hols.

The students typically called us before the hols to see whet was available. Due to the nature of the business there we're normally shifts available. We agreed the shifts they were to work, they got paid then went back to uni. Saved hours if paperwork setting them up as a new employee every time they came home for the hols.

My employer didn't abuse the system though. Sounds like plenty do.

Immigration has a lot to do with it, despite the usual denials from the left. Surplus of labour leads to a drop in both wages and working conditions.

The existence of zero hour contracts make it completely mrally accepbtapbe to take as much cash in hand work as you can get.

jojay is right. .. That's what zero hr contracts are designed for and I've seen them work well that way. To use them to strip away the rights of permanent staff is a blooming disgrace.

Tucsongirl, we had no immigrants working where I was except a couple of Australians and a German :D The simple reason we were on zero hour contracts is because it was convenient for the boss. It doesn't really make sense to the boss to pay guards if they aren't on roster, so you don't get paid if you aren't working a shift. This is unpleasant, but immigrants aren't to blame.

Mamamary it is hand to mouth and it is difficult to hold on to a rental property as well. It's alright if you're a student, but if it's your main job (as it was mine) it's not a fantastic thing. I was in a HMO at the time with four other people and I sometimes could easily pay the rent (we paid weekly), sometimes had to borrow money and sometimes had to hide from the landlord's agent when she came round until I was back on next week and could pay two weeks.

There are zero hour contracts on Universal Job Match.

They stink and should be banned.

Immigration has a lot to do with it, despite the usual denials from the left. Surplus of labour leads to a drop in both wages and working conditions.

what do a surplus of consumers lead to?

I really don't understand how anyone can pretend that a contract weighted entirely in the employer's favour where the employee gets hardly any hours but must ensure they have childcare available for much of the week regardless is 'good for people looking to fit work around childcare commitments'.

It's just utterly perverse logic.

And, Tucsongirl, it's not immigration that's the problem but capitalism and the state not giving a shit about the people at the bottom of the pile.

And, Tucsongirl, it's not immigration that's the problem but capitalism and the state not giving a shit about the people at the bottom of the pile.

misdiagnosing the problem won't lead to a solution.

it's crazy these contracts and how common they are.

I was on one in my last job. Been in this job for 3 weeks and whilst it's still only 12 hours a week, but also covering other shifts as and when - it IS 12 hours a week regardless of what everyone else is doing. So I know I will definitely have a minimum of £303 every 4 weeks.

The last job made me ill. Not only was it a joyous zero-hour contract but the boss seemed to hate his employees (or maybe just the female ones, who knows) and the two women in my team and I were treated unfairly, spoken to like shit, and if we dared ask for a specific day off, berated for it because 'what if it's busy, do you see we have all these offers on, you have to work it's in your contract and on the rota'

Well actually zero hours and flexibility works both ways, technically. But fear stopped us ever saying that because we wanted to be able to pay the rent and eat.

I remember a couple of years ago someone tried to raise a grievance against the store manager for treating employees terribly (and that was when we had a whopping 4 hours contract) - she was fired. And when I say fired I mean, humiliated, all of us interrogated about her with leading questions that we all struggled to answer without it being twisted to make her look bad, but no questions about the manager at all, and then the area and regional managers and store manager high-fiving each other after it was done, thinking they hadn't been seen. They deemed her racist for making a complaint, but the manager was never deemed sexist for telling women to go and cry in a corner and various other bile.

Like I said, in the end it made me ill and I was happy to escape to 12 hours in a supermarket(I earn more than minimum wage - by 2p, but it's still more and to me, it counts).

Horrible, horrible contracts. Sometimes now I have moments where I cry a little bit over how awful it was and wonder why I let it happen to me..

But the problem is capitalism, and the state not caring enough to put measures in place to protect people from it's excesses. Within a capitalist system the companies just want to make as much money as possible. Zero and short hours contracts allow them to minimise their own costs. The fact that it utterly screws people over doesn't much matter to the pursuit of profit. And also the fact that people within the system as so scared of losing their jobs that they'll screw over other people's families so as to keep their own fed and clothed. But, of course, all that matters is that the profits rise every year.

At the moment our government is super keen to erode what employment rights we have so has to allow the pursuit of profit to ride roughshod over anyone and everyone. And, at the same time, vilifying anyone who is not employed (or is underemployed) and, therefore, requires state assistance.

Then there are all these people believing ukip that it's all those terrible immigrants' fault, when actaully ukip (who are even keener on reducing employment rights than anyone else) just want to make things worse for people. Indeed, it suits them to reinforce the idea that everyone should simply be grateful to have a job at all and stop all this ridiculous talk of being treated decently by employers.