Zero Hours Contracts

[LittleMissSnowShine]

Been in the news a lot recently, e.g. http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/05/zero-hours-contracts-cover-1m-uk-workers

From 2000 - 2002 I worked part time in retail, in a chain corner shop type place. I was doing A-Levels then and usually did one evening a week and one full day at weekend, usually more during the holidays or to cover other staff being off. I didnt even have a contract but if I did it would have been zero hours because managers could just change the rota at will.

From 2002 - 2006 I was at university and had a lot of casual jobs from restaurants to bars, cafes and market research. Again all zero hour contracts, it wasnt unusual to turn up for a shift, do an hour and then for a manager to send half the staff home if it was a quiet night. Not all the other people I worked with were students and most of us, except people still living with parents, had bills / rent to pay so it could be a real pain to not get any hours. On another occasion, one of the bars I worked in decided to close for a month one January and if you were full time you had to take all your annual leave then (tough luck if you were hoping to save some for the summer!) or if you were on a casual contract you just didnt get paid for a month.

I worked in Belfast and Glasgow, and I have friends who had very similar experiences in London, Newcastle, Leeds, Edinburgh etc, some of whom were on these types of contracts for very big coffee / retail chains.

I'm definitely not saying it's right and it would def make family budgeting unbelievably difficult (I had no kids then but do now so I can appreciate how tough arranging things like childcare on a zero hour contract would be). But what I am wondering about is surely this is not a new phenomenon? Didnt anyone else work these kind of jobs / contracts before now? I wonder why this didnt seem so newsworthy before but also how smaller businesses with a much more varied cash flow are supposed to survive otherwise?

Interested to hear other people's experiences of this...

Zero hours, zero benefits, zero enthusiasm. Why would anyone take a job on these terms?

mikesivier.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/zero-hours-zero-benefits-zero-enthusiasm-why-would-anyone-take-a-job-on-these-terms/

I think it has become news now for two reasons:

a) We're in the midst of a recession, so naturally employment concerns are more in the fore

b) The sheer scale of zero-hour contracts has recently (AFAIK) been revealed to be much larger than previously thought.

I guess the reason I took a whole series of jobs with zero hours and zero benefits is that I would have preferred doing that (and the prospect of making an ok wage even if some weeks that didn't happen) than being on the dole, but also because a lot of the work I was doing was bar / restaurant etc. the tips could really help make up for the low rate of base pay and the fact that some weeks you'd be doing 3 shifts and others 6 shifts. I guess there are no tips in retail so that is pretty crap.

I've got a zero hours contract. I do get some benefits eg am currently getting maternity pay based on the previous year's earnings.

Plusses:
It's in the same field as my previous full time job, for which I paid to do an MA, so it keeps my hand in without the pressure of a FT post while the children are young.
It happens to be related to teaching so is term-time only - now DD1 is at school that's useful.
My employer does allow me to turn down work without it affecting what they offer me in the future. So we have in the past decided to take last minute breaks, or gone to see my family, and I don't have to book holiday - I just say I'm not available on these dates. I also have a day a week where I don't work - up until this summer I took DD1 to her swimming lesson on that day so I was able to keep it free.

Minuses:
I don't know what I'm going to be earning from one month to the next. I can make a guess now I've been doing it a while but I can't guarantee it. This makes life bloody hard when trying to work out what benefits we can claim. People ask for monthly income - well, in June and July it can be as much as £800, in August, it's nothing. Budgeting isn't the best either.
Child care - I'm lucky. I found a very good nursery who were happy to have DD1 on an ad-hoc basis. When I got an email from work asking if I could do particular dates, I would phone nursery and check they had space on those days. I never got turned down which was fortunate. They didn't require me to commit to a set day or days a week, which meant I never had to pay if she wasn't there in order to 'hold her place'. If I had, I couldn't have done it as it would have cost me more than I earned, by the time I'd put her in on days when there was no work.
Work-wise, I barely know any of my colleagues. I come in, do what I'm there to do (working with children) and go home. There's no 'down-time', or coffee breaks, when I might chat to people. I don't really know what's going on in the organisation as a whole, or who anyone outside of my immediate team - it's a bit isolating.

I'm happy with it for this stage in my life though - while I've got young children it works for us.

Babybythesea, you have been relatively lucky, I think, with childcare especially, and you seem to have a reasonable employer. At least, it's OK for you at the moment.

But I have colleagues, again public sector (teaching) who also have families to support and they hate the uncertainty and insecurity. One of them has a leak in her roof, but doesn't know if she should get it repaired because she has no idea how much work will be available in September.

It all adds immensely to the pressures that working families are under.

I think this type of contract is a real exploitation. My DP is on a zero hours teaching contract. He gets a contract each year, is dismissed in summer and then receives a new contract a week later. This is so he gets NO benefits, no continuous employment, pension etc. His classes are advertised and he needs to commit to them, so no holiday can be booked. Then usually with one week to go before classes start he is told whether there are enough students to run the class. If not he gets zero hours and that's that.

Recently he was given given the equivalent of 25 hrs to teach a week for 10 wks. However only one class ran so got 5hrs a week pay. This is a very difficult situation to be in and I can't tell you how sole destroying this can be. He has to give all his commitment, write classes and curriculum (without) payment and then can get nothing in return.

We need this income though, what can you do?

Yes, this happened somewhere I used to work (a private language school). They said you had to work for 13 weeks in order to qualify for one week's holiday. But the term was 12 weeks long.

Contemptible.

Something I hadnt realised is that some employers seem to expect employees on a zero hour contract to only work for them exclusively, even though they can't / won't guarantee them work week to week. That seems particularly unfair since at least if you had a few diff casual / zero hour contracts you would have a better chance of picking up shifts from week to week. I dont remember any of my employers having a clause like this...

Absolutely appalling. No idea this was going on.

I have had colleagues on zero-hour contracts but only as an additional-hours arrangement on top of fixed basic hours, which I think is OK, though I guess employers could still fix like 5 hours a week and then put everything else onto the zero hours arrangement.

Like unpaid internships, I think zero-hours contracts are ballooning as most employers would now see the idea that they have responsibility to their employees to make conditions that allow them to lead a decent life as bizarre, whereas the idea that they must do everything up to and including breaking the law to cut costs is normal.

This should not happen in the public sector, except as a top-up on minimum 20 hours pw IMO. But it does.

solopower - the more I hear the more I realise how damn lucky I am.
Zero hours works for me at the moment, because I have a good employer and great, very flexible, childcare.

There are five zero hours people in my dept. I am the only one without another job. Three are employed by other settings, one is self-employed and fits it entirely round how busy he is with his business.

The budgeting thing does affect me because although I can have a bash at predicting what I might get in a month, it is only a prediction and is based on factors outside my control (whether schools book to visit my place of work - if they do, I'm called in to work. If they don't, I'm not). I can't ask for more shifts, for example, if the work isn't there.

And the childcare. The nursery I found was wonderful and DD loved it there. If, however, they'd said "In order to attend here you must pay for every Tuesday and Wednesday to keep her place, whether you are working or not and therefore whether you earn or not" I couldn't have done it. I could be working any day out of the five week days and not the same days from week to week, therefore I'd have had to book her in and pay for full time childcare for all five days in order to keep a place. Which, if you then only work one morning in the week, would have been completely unaffordable. Or I could have booked just one day for childcare, then only been available to work that one day and still had to pay for it if it wasn't a day I was called in. I was so so lucky, to find somewhere that would do it on such an ad-hoc basis, and moreover, somewhere where the staff were so good and she was very happy. I haven't heard the childcare side of it discussed at all so far in the media. But I have appreciated how lucky I have been right from the outset.

So I think the principle of zero hours can work well: even though there are some downsides for me, it is a good arrangement for us at the moment. I just hadn't realised how many people were being screwed over by their employers in these contracts.

Just seen yet another update to this story on the Guardian about how something like 9/10 staff in McDonalds are on zero hour contracts but apparently McDs have been doing this since 1970s. As others have said, it doesn't necessarily make it right (tho zero hour contracts or week to week temp work does suit some peoples circumstances) but as I suspected, this is not really a 'new' issue, just one getting a lot of coverage at the min

Should be outlawed, but won't be.

I'm glad it is getting a lot of coverage, but like you am slightly amazed that it wasn't picked up on before, because these type of contracts have been around for ages. They are pretty shitty though - surely a key component of an employment contract should be that there is an obligation on the employer's part to provide work and to pay for that work?

I agree, expat. It's an abomination, but zero and short hours contracts are here to stay.

It is not the contracts that are wrong, it is the way these companies are using them to exploit workers.

They can be used in a positive way. When I left my last role, as I could no longer tolerate a particular knobhead manager undermining my professional position, Head Office offered me a zero hours contract for 3 months from the end of my notice. This meant if I didn't find a suitable job that I enjoyed I could return without losing length of service benefits.

I am aware that I may be in a minority and it must be awful to have to work as some of these companies use them though.

Some companies / employers aren't necessarily using them in an exploititave way in that staff on zero hour contracts still get opportunity to access training, some benefits like the opportunity to contribute to an employee pension scheme and I suppose flexible work can suit people trying to fit shifts in around childcare or studying. Plus I imagine some type of paid employment, zero hour contract or not, probably boosts your CV a bit and might make it a bit easier to find something better.

All that being said, I'd hate to be the main breadwinner for a family and only able to find that type of work

I have a friend who worked in market research on a zero hours contract. Living with her boyfriend, no kids, and cheap rent, so they could manage despite her not getting any shifts sometimes. Then the boyfriend left and she wasn't given any shifts for four months. Officially quitting meant not being able to sign on for a while. Ended up having to move back to her parents' at 27. How these contracts are legal is beyond me.

I should also add that not only do they give DP zero hours contract as described above but also detail all staff on this contract as 'freelance'. So as self employed, working for them. This also means no paternity pay (statutory) and no childcare vouchers, despite us both working.
Oh and yes, this is a public sector organisation......

One very big drawback of a zero hours contract is - no sick pay. Imagine, being completely unavoidably off work at a time when you would have been very busy - and no money.

I have a zero hours contract and it works for me as:
a) there are always lots of shifts to pick up. It's not very often that I don't get the shifts that I want
b) my employer is very fair
c) I have income from another source
d) I have help from family for childcare
e) it gives me the freedom to study during term time and work more during holidays
f) I have freedom to take time off if DD is ill or if we want to go away for a weekend without worrying about annual leave

I understand it's not for everyone and if this was the only source of income we had as a family this would be really difficult.

80% of people where I work are on zero hours contracts. It is shocking how badly they are all treated. They can go a whole month without a single day off but if they take a day off through sheer exhaustion they lose hours so have no work for a while. It is like the offer of work is used as a punishment.

I always had zero hours jobs as a student. In a cafe, bar, call centre. they were fairly standard.

The worst one I had was in a shopping centre food court where the new manager brought in loads of students and gave all the hours of the staff that were full time to the students. Loads of them were worried about paying their mortgage. Awful, just awful. I left very quickly after she joined.

I don't see how zero hours contract are fair or how an employer is fair working with people in this way - as it is not fair.

You can't get another job as you are not allowed

you may work zero hours one week but 40 hours the next and never know when or if you will have money to put food on the table.

Zero hours, zero benefits, zero enthusiasm. Why would anyone take a job on these terms?

People are forced to take these jobs to stop them claiming benefits - but then they could still be without work but not have money/income.

UC will come in and force people to take zero hours contracts if they work part time - yet they will end of in a worse mess working full time on a zero hours contract because all of a sudden the work may go.

The only way this will stop is if people object on mass and that type of organisation has gone

Should be made illegal.