Zero hours contracts. Do they work for you?

[OCSockOrphanage]

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I hope the link works. I am posting because our business has a couple of people on zero hours contracts. One is retired with two pensions but still likes to top up (it pays for extras) and the other has another zero hours job but wants the flexibility to be able to travel to kickstart his second (art-related) career. Both are being paid the full going rate (well over nmw) for the hours they give us, and we value their work, but neither has sick or holiday pay. Where do you all believe exploitation begins?

Jas thats great, but for smaller businesses who dont have a huge number of staff to swap with it wouldn't work. Plus in my industry I quite often need additional cover for maybe just 2 hours per day, a couple days per week so calling someone on a zero hours contract to see if they can help works for me.

I agree that something needs to be done to provide more job security to people forced into zero hours. Maybe if you consistently work x number of hours per week over x number of weeks your contract should reflect that. Would mean that people who genuinely want to be on zero hours could stay on them, and would provide job security to those who don't want zero hours contracts.

I totally understand Urbanrock. In your circumstance it works well. However, I don't believe big businesses - with high footfall/productivity - should use these. For e.g. I remember reading an article about SportsDirect which horrified me! (But to be honest that covered a big ground, zero hours contracts being just one part!)

just wait til your pregnet and see how good they are they allow for companies with no morals to side step nearly every single employment law going.

ei your pregnet in qualifying weeks they dont give you any hours cuz you are not needed = only martianity allowence

Sick pay might not get it at all same with holiday pay.

No sercuirty at all no minium number of hours garnteed so nearly impossable to sort of housing benfit / tax criedits / other wage dependant benifets.

Most of Europe have ether banned them outright or restricted them massively, in the north west around 90% of jobs are Zero hour contracts, with compnaies labeling set hours as zero hours to avoid all the employment laws i mentioned

OP here. Thanks to everyone who has suggested I need to check we are accruing holiday pay. It's not part of my role, but as our accountant is quite excellent, I would doubt that we are non-compliant. The folk concerned were definitely invited to join our new pension scheme.

The issue I had with a zero hours contract was that it was all in favour of the employer.
I had to be available from 7.30 am to 10 pm for 12 days out of 14, and if I said I wasn't available for a portion of that even after giving 2 weeks notice then I'd find that I wasn't given any hours at all.
Also I knew of several members of staff who the boss wanted rid of for some spurious reason, they weren't sacked but just given no hours for week after week.

As with most things there are good and bad things.
I suffered financially and emotionally under my zero hours contract.
I could be given 50 hours one week, 10 hours the next then nothing for s fortnight then 30 and so on.
The rare times I refused work I'd always say "I can't come in on x day but I'm available every other day for y amount of time" yet id be penalised and not given any work for a while (up to a month) even though my co workers would say they were being given way too many hours as I wasn't there to share the load during the busier shifts.
It was an awful time for me and almost drove me to suicide as I lived in a place with very few jobs, most were 0hrs too. So I did it for a long time until something came up that was set hours.
I couldn't claim jsa as some weeks I worked too many hours, couldn't claim tax credits for partially the same reason and also my age and lack of kids. Couldn't claim hb because my hours weren't regular enough... so some weeks I had literally nothing coming in yet could not get support.
On the flip side,
My sister did 0hr factory work.
There was always work going, she enjoyed it, it fit in with her lifetime and was flexible. She was never penalised for being unable to go in.

I think perhaps 0hrs would be a great thing if it had to be requested by the employee OR the employee was allowed a clause in their contract to allow them to have x amount of set hours?
There must be a compromise that doesn't hurt those who need the flexibility

If you pro-rata the hourly salary up to full time, add a pension, employers/employees NI, income tax, average out some sick pay, holiday pay and any other benefits you'd get in a full time job, you should be paying far more than an equivalent full-time employee. If you're not, then you are BU.

I worked one for a while. I was paid holiday pay, can't remember what the sick pay situation was. It was great for me at the time, I wanted the flexibility to work or not work as I pleased and it suited the needs of the business too. Some weeks I worked 60 hours, some I didn't work at all.

It's not the company's responsibility to provide contracted hours when they don't necessarily have work to offer. Abolishing them is not the way forward.

I wouldn't mind them but my old work place they stopped using me because I didn't want to work 10 days in a row on 10 hour shifts. I only wanted to work part time as and when this fully flexible thing employers ask when you have 0 hour contract is taking the piss.

I think it depends.
Its all about the balance of power; a highly skilled worker whose skills are in high demand may well enjoy a zhc, as they are more likely to get things on their terms. A worker with widely held skills, who can be replaced more easily is at risk of being seriously exploited on a zhc: Unable to turn down hours (in case they never get any more), yet with an unreliable income. They have also been used in the past as a loophole to get around employment law: You don't have to fire someone on a zhc, or make them redundant, you can just stop offering them hours.
Employment regulations should be there to rebalance the power between employer and worker, and I don't think our current laws are good enough for today.

So it does make it much easier for employers to exploit workers - of course many don't, and you get good employers who use zero hour contracts in a fair way. You may well be one of them. But I don't believe that "trusting" employers to do the right thing is an effective way to protect workers, and that's effectively what we're doing at the moment.

There is no unskilled work in our business, as it's all bespoke; if we need grunt labour, clients hire temp people locally. There's no forecasting what contracts may arise, and most are quite short notice rush jobs. They may be anywhere in the UK or overseas, on land or sea, but there's no single job site. Our permanent staff travel, everyone needs security clearance for site work, and our old bloke (mid-70s) potters around doing delicate bits of engineering construction to pay for his luxuries, a boat and caravan. He likes to work, it makes him feel good, tops up his pension, gives him company and gets him out of the house. We don't need him for all the hours he works, but we've known him for almost 40 years and respect his skills. The other works only primary school hours and is building up a portfolio in a creative career, with a pension from a first career and a partner working FT. For different reasons, outlined, it suits them both and it is not exploitative.

Small businesses and specialist firms value the flexibility of zhc, but there has to be trust on both sides for it to work. Self-employed subcontractors are not a viable model because of the size, cost and variety of the tools and equipment needed in our work. There are few similar companies; the competition are big multinational OEMs.

My point is that if ZHCs were banned completely and some posters clearly think they should be, two skilled, flexible jobs would be lost. How does that help anyone?

My daughter works on a zero hours contract - it's what she wants and it suits her.

She is living away from at university and we pay the difference between her maintenance loan and rent and give her a monthly allowance. She has a zero hours contract to work (waitressing mainly) as and when it suits her. If they ask her to work but she has a heavy study load then she can turn it down; if they ask her to work and she fancies coming home that weekend then she can turn it down. She worked a solid week at the end of exams last month but turned down what she was offered DURING the exams. A "regular" job with fixed hours would simply not suit her at this time of her life.

if we need grunt labour

Words escape me. That may be an acceptable term in Australia but certainly isn't here.

Shows a lot about what you think about the people who work for you!

"My point is that if ZHCs were banned completely and some posters clearly think they should be, two skilled, flexible jobs would be lost. How does that help anyone?"

I don't think they should be banned completely, but in the situation you describe those jobs wouldn't really be lost, would they? If you need those workers, you would find a way to employ them legally.

I can think of several better solutions than banning zhc completely, and I am just a random on mumsnet. I am sure that experts in employment law who have researched it thoroughly and have much more time, resources and knowledge than me can come up with a good solution. IF there is the political will to do so, of course. It will be difficult to design legislation that protects vulnerable workers whilst still allowing those who benefit from zhc to continue enjoying the flexibility they bring, but not impossible and something has to be done.

I've had zero hours when I've been temping - I love them because I'm efficient and reliable, therefore the work keeps coming my way, there is more work than I can cope with.

As an employer I've used them - not everyone can have a full time contract eg exam invigilators, it is seasonal work.

Works vvv well if you a student. When uni work gets too busy you turn it down.

I'm a student and if I couldn't have a zero hour contract I couldn't work. I can't have contracted hours or days due to the nature of my degree.
However, having done other zero hour contact jobs I've found that the more your work the more hours you get offered. I don't think they're a good thing for people where that is their main job and only income.

I can see why for some people and some skilled jobs they might be beneficial. But they cause utter misery for far more. If I had to choose between an outright ban or continuing with the current system, I'd ban them. I get that would make life hard for some, but imo it's more important that people who need to rely on their income entirely can do so. The needs of those wanting a bit extra or to fit round study/ own business/ sahp etc are secondary.

I don't think it needs to be either/or though. You could make it so all low paid jobs were monthly hours contracts, rather than weekly hours to allow flexibility. And rules about what % of the wage bill/employees are allowed to not have full salaried positions dependent on business size. So eg a warehouse would need 99% of it's floor staff to be on contracts, but an independent restaurant with 5 contracted staff could have 2 on zero hours also. And go back to the now rare temp contracts for busy periods like Xmas.

Agree Lurked that there are plenty of ways to build some flexibility into the system; you could also exempt new rules on zhc applying to those earning over a certain amount, so employers have to choose between guaranteeing hours to workers, or offering them a higher wage. It doesn't have to be as black and white as banning them completely.

I was under a zero hour contract but worked full time hours. Then I fell pregnant. They cut my hours straight away to avoid having to pay me maternity pay. I ended up having to claim Maternity Allowance and was so poor while pregnant I survived on soup and porridge and become severely anaemic and was very, very ill.

They are disgusting, another way to mistreat employees, and should be banned.

I have been on them and loved it.

But i was a teen. I just wrote in the diary when i coild work and if hours were available i would get them. I had no real responsibility. If i didnt get hours one week it was fine. If i didnt want to work for a couple of weeks, that was fine too.

Dad is on one now. He loves it. Again its top his pension up and he doesnt have loads of responsibility. Mortgage is paid. If he doesnt want to work, he doesnt. If they dont need him for a week its fine.

Neither of us experienced pressure to work more hours than we could or punished for saying no by losing hours.

But i still think they arent great for most people and can be exploitive.

I know squishy but in reality a system that works for everyone won't ever happen, those who benefit from the exploitation won't compromise. So the only change I can envisage is an outright ban if people revolt.

It worked for me for a while. Then a new manager started who didn't like me.
The amount of worked I was offered decreased until it stopped completely. I've effectively been sacked and have no recourse.

OC rock - accountants are not experts in employment law although most are au fait with auto enrolment due to the amount of information that's been given out recently.

We have a few on zero hours, a student & someone who was made redundant from another firm & asked us if we could give him any hours.

Everyone accrues holiday pay, all get sick pay.

Rolled up holiday pay which a few posters have mentioned is no longer allowed, the holiday must be taken. This may change in the future as a court found it was lawful but an appeal to the European court found not.

www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/holiday-pay-the-basics