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

I tried to have this conversation with my parents on Saturday but I was wasting my time. They are basically working class Tories who don't vote.
Had to listen to my DM blaming "immigrants" and my 19 year old niece championing UKIP. Im almost tempted to go to the registry office and get a full birth certificate because I cant believe I come from them.

Agree with Solid. Those above us lost the moral high ground a long time ago so all bets are off.

Capitalism is slowly eating itself though. People on workfare and zero/low hours wont be able to buy the products produced by some of these employers. Eventually these employers will be complicit in their own demise.

ukip (who are even keener on reducing employment rights than anyone else

I tried to get this across to my niece who is currently signing on. And I told her about some of the ukip members views on women.

Don't think she took it in though.

However it is up to her who she votes for.

Zero hours contract should be banned. People can't live like that not knowing if they're going to have money coming in or not, but I read that they are now going to sanction the unemployed if they refuse to take a zero hours contract vacancy. Another bullying policy on the poor and the needy and their innocent children. .xxx.

I've not read the thread, but in my experience these short hours contracts are even more exploitative than zero hours contracts.

I have worked under a 4.75 hour a week contract, but under constant pressure to do extra hours to cover colleagues sickness, holidays, maternity leave extra. Most weeks I was working much closer to 30 hours.

I was really shocked to find out that holiday pay was only accrued on my contracted 4.75 hours, not any of the additional hours. Colleagues who were "lucky" enough to be on zero hours were legally entitled to accrue holiday pay for every hour they worked.

This equates to about a 12% difference in pay, and is bizarrely entirely legal within the letter of the law (but does seem to be against the spirit)

This wasn't a retailer, but a public sector organisation, who really should know better.

Thankfully, I now been promoted and now have better hours & holiday entitlement. But employers exploiting such loop holes (and their staff) seems entirely wrong.

I was really shocked to find out that holiday pay was only accrued on my contracted 4.75 hours, not any of the additional hours. Colleagues who were "lucky" enough to be on zero hours were legally entitled to accrue holiday pay for every hour they worked.

Blimey I didn't realise this.

Holiday pay should be based on an average wage over the previous x amount of weeks, regardless of contracted wage, contracted wage is the minimum you should get

gov info on holiday pay

Thanks 17leftfeet but the crucial wording in your link is "A week’s holiday pay equals how much a worker gets for a week’s work (excluding non-guaranteed overtime payments in most cases)"

Any additional hours that I worked fall under "non-guaranteed overtime" , therefore not subject to holiday par accrual.

I took this up with ACAS several years ago and was told my employers are acting legally. If I've been given wrong information and this is in fact not correct, I would take them to a tribunal to recover unpaid holiday pay in a heart beat

Tucsongirl
Do you not know that zero hours were common in the good ole days before there were unions? The gangmasters came to the docks (or wherever) and chose their workers for the day and the rest had to go home. But blame the immigrants, that's easier. Easiest to blame those who have least rather than those who are really to blame.

I've been involved in a grievance previously with a retailer where the employer agreed to pay as the employee had worked a minimum of 10 hrs overtime every week other than when he had been on holiday, but more usually 20 hrs

They agreed to pay his holiday based on 10hrs ot and I'm thinking they were probably grateful he wasn't pushing for those hours to be contractual

You are right about the letter of the law but I think they decided it was more the spirit of the law in that instance although I noticed they didn't change the company policy

I have sometimes wondered if I pushed my grievance down the tribunal route how far I'd get.

But my pre-DC employer (sole trader) summarily dismissed me when he found out I was pregnant several years ago. I was of course successful at tribunal, but he now refuses me a reference.

So whilst I'm at my exploitative employer, I would worry that pursuing another tribunal would well and truly stuff my employment prospects long term.

alsmutko yes re. the docks thing. We swiftly seem to be going back to those days or rather the modern day equivalent of it.

I remember learning about the Poor Law in high school just pre GCSE. And there are some comparisons to be made with back then.