Zero Hour Contracts

Billy69_uk

Billy69_uk

Well-known member
Should Zero hours contracts be outlawed for organisations and companies who employ more than 10 people?

or companies who have a turnover of more than X £ million pounds?

Does the rise of zero hours contracts artificially skew the employment figures? and who is the main beneficiary of the massive increase in zero hours contracts?

doesn't seem a benefit for the vast majority of low income workers who are forced to survive month to month or week to week on a zero hours contract.

but what do I know.
 
They have all sorts of problems but many do benefit from them, namely those that can’t commit to fixed hours, students and those doing multiple jobs. Any changes to how these work should be done in consultation with those that work the jobs, not society trying to fix something they perceive as broken.
 
You can't put a figure on it like x no turnover or x no of staff, not that low anyway. A company might have 4 staff (1 on ZHC) and turn over £1 million, another might turnover £1 million with 30 staff (25 on ZHC). A company turning over 1 million might be making 400k a year, another might be break even.

Construction needs ZHC, or it just doesn't work, the only other alternative is using an agency, which means the staff get paid less, and the company actually doing the job pays more. The only winner is the agency, as the client, contractor, sub contractor, the staff and the end user/ public all end up paying more.

The other options are employing staff full time, but only when they have work on, and then lay the staff off when they don't have any work on (which could be 30 times a year) and pretty much guaranteed to be the whole of December for those in utilitites. Or make every member of the staff set up as a business, and then just contract them in. These ways are much worse for the staff, and this is what construction is trying to get away from.

A ZHC doesn't necessarily mean low wages either, you could have a site engineer being paid £25/hr on ZOC. One week he might do 50 hours, the next he might do 20. Then he might do nothing for a month, and then have 4 weeks of 50 hours.

Company's can't survive the troughs/ lack of work and having a wage bill for nothing achieved. The same way they can't survive if there's a lack of labour/ skilled trades when they get plenty of work. There must be flexibility.

The vast majority of small construction companies don't know what they're doing 2 weeks in advance, as their main contractors and clients don't know what they're doing, which is caused by red tape or ridiculous requirements due to the public.
 
I guess I hadnt thought about contractors and constructions companies etc.

I was more thinking about the large number of workers in the retail and service sectors, where from the outside looking in, it seems like a no-risk strategy for the employer and the employee is at the brunt of the ups and downs.
 
Without zero hour contracts though that employee might not have a job.

there should be some regulations whereby if an employee works largely full time consistently they are converted, much like what happened with temp staff rights - but if it’s genuinely flexing and both parties are fine with it I don’t see the issue.
 
It's difficult to ban them because they do have use cases and for many they work really well. When I was younger I had one at McDonalds. I didn't realise it was a ZHC at the time. I just had a job and I worked whatever they gave me. It was usually about the same each week but I had the flexibility to say I couldn't work Saturdays when there was a home game and I could easily increase my hours when it was the holidays etc. It worked well for me at the time.

Maybe some sort of minimum hours contract would work better that is calculated over a longer period so zero hours per week is possible but there has to be 40 per 4 week period for example.
 
TheFair86 said:
Without zero hour contracts though that employee might not have a job.

there should be some regulations whereby if an employee works largely full time consistently they are converted, much like what happened with temp staff rights - but if it’s genuinely flexing and both parties are fine with it I don’t see the issue.
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you make a great point, if it is genuine flexing that suits both parties , then I guess its fit for purpose.

if its a way for less than scrupulous employers to dodge their employer commitments, then I have reservations.
 
Yeah, it's not just construction that needs ZOC, loads of other industries do too.

Budgets are tight, and works are flexible for a lot of companies, with demand changing wildly, so they need staff to be flexible or the business wouldn't exist.

If there's less businesses, there's less competition, which means 10 smaller companies = 1 massive company, and then they can charge higher rates (as a monopoly), which means the wealth is less distributed even further.

Small businesses need ZHC, otherwise a lot of them can't compete.
 
Billy69_uk said:
if its a way for less than scrupulous employers to dodge their employer commitments, then I have reservations.
Click to expand...

A ZHC is better than no contract, and ZHC employees still get paid holiday, redundancy and workers rights etc. If they do loads of hours consistently they can be classed as full time. Workers on ZHC can even turn hours down if they want.

It's a way of making "less than scrupulous employers" actually go more legal/ straightforward. It should prevent cash in hand, millions of 1 man companies and tons of staff getting laid off on Friday and employed again on Monday.
 
Thank God I am retired now. So I have a question for those who think ZHC's are good. Could someone on ZHC get a mortgage or any other loan?
Maybe I am missing something but hut how does a ZHC benefit the economy if someone doesn't know how much money they will get from week to week. Doesn't this have the effect of the person on ZHC not spending money because of this. In other words being afraid to spend money because they will need it for the times when the hours are not forthcoming?
ZHC's are not designed for the employee that's for sure.
 
@ Trug and @motownjung - agree with your sentiments.

It is harder to get a mortgage on ZHC, particularly since lrnding rules were tightened up. Some companies won't give mortgages at all; others will once you have a proven income over a period of time.
 
The supporters of zero hour contracts (The Tories) always drag someone out from London or one of the other cities where they have a zero hours contract and their next one is three streets away. For people who have to work for the Mike Ashley’s of this world it’s a different kettle of fish!
Makes you laugh with the Amazon advert, they all give a reason for working there.....except MONEY!!!
 
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