Zero hours contract help....

[mammasmadhouse]

My dd been working at a local activity centre for 3-4 years, last year her boss put everyone on a zero hours contract, her working hours have been relatively stable. She started Uni this year and due to the days she was at Uni could no longer get into work in the 2 weekdays she started at 3.30pm/4.00pm. She asked if it was possible to drop the weekday's as no one else could swap days but she could continue with the Saturday, which there were happy with. Today she has been told that after Xmas she will no longer be required. I really just wanted to see if there is anything that we could do with this....?

Bumping for you in case somebody has better advice, but from what you've put here I don't think there is anything you can do. They've given notice, presumably the amount that's required in her contract?

In some ways she's had the best and worst of a zero hours contract (I used to have one when I was a student). Used properly they give both employer and employee the flexibility to change hours. Whether or not her boss was right to put everybody on zero hours last year when everybody's hours are relatively stable, well that's another question, as is whether or not you can do anything about it now.

Sorry that your DD has lost her job, but if she can't do the hours that the firm needs then I think they are probably within their rights to terminate her contract and find somebody else

Wouldn't this be a redundancy situation though? I'm not sure about how it stands with zero-hour contracts, but normally, if you have worked somewhere for that length of time, they would have to formally go through the redundancy process, rather than just 'give notice' of letting her go.

I think it depends very much on the nature of the zero hours contract, and how the OP's DD has been employed in practice. The "correct" use of zero hours is to hire casual/flexible labour e.g. to cover peaks in demand. In that scenario things like redundancy, paid annual leave etc don't generally apply. But if OP's DD has been working regular hours for a few years then she might be entitled to something regardless of the contract she's on.

However, the cynic in me thinks that they switched everyone on to zero hours last year precisely to avoid having to pay redundancy etc in the future, so OP's DD is unlikely to get anything without a fight.

OP, there's advice on the ACAS website m.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=4468 that might be helpful, there is also a helpline number there you can call. Good luck.