zero hours contracts .....luddites unite !

[otokonomidori]

Originally Posted by tittys n beer

Just as there is a minimum wage, there should also be a minimum amount of hours an employee has a right to work every week.

But what if the employer does not have enough work to meet the required minimum?

He surely can't be expected to pay for people to stand around scratching their bollocks.

WHat would happen is that fewer people would get hired and many would lose their jobs.

[tittys n beer]

Originally Posted by otokonomidori

He surely can't be expected to pay for people to stand around scratching their bollocks.

Only the men, or at least i'd hope so lol.

Originally Posted by otokonomidori

But what if the employer does not have enough work to meet the required minimum?

WHat would happen is that fewer people would get hired and many would lose their jobs.

Then they should hire a work force that is relative to the size of the business.

Perhaps that means there are fewer openings, but when the job you have entails no paid work, you're actually better off without it.
At least that means that we're heading back to the days where full time employment is the norm and the economy can start to recover.

I've spoken to people who have three jobs because none of their jobs commits to giving them enough hours.

You have three people sharing 1 job, and each of them is sharing another two other jobs with 4 more people.
It's ridiculous.

[NIN]

Originally Posted by otokonomidori

But what if the employer does not have enough work to meet the required minimum?

He surely can't be expected to pay for people to stand around scratching their bollocks.

WHat would happen is that fewer people would get hired and many would lose their jobs.

I've been in that position of keeping a small workforce occupied through lean times, you keep your team together to prevent the skills going to the four winds, inventing tasks to keep people occupied. An employer provides work for a group of individuals to work towards a common goal, enables those people the means to support & feed their families, secures them the means to pay their way and yes, you do have to sometimes pay them to scratch their balls.
Zero hours is devisive, tieing individuals to irregular pay, poor working practices & low standards of safety. Taking advantage of the inexperienced, the disproportionately young, poorly literate and badly paid, with most earning less than the living wage - Treat 'em mean, keep 'em cheap.
I've nothing against casual workers when supply demands it, but when times get tough, let them go, let them know where they stand , seek alternate employment before the drought loses them their homes, family lives & self respect.
The most marginal and precarious workers, the disposable young, de-skilled and casual labourers, migrant workers and others at the bottom of the pile. It provides a whip of insecurity that disciplines those who were recently stable, secure in their investment to their employer, that their time, efforts and skills were valued by their employers.
Zero Hours Retention, for it is not a 'Contract', is not something to idealise or be admired – it speaks of a common problem, an overseer that was done away with slave-masters from a time of lesser human morals. It's a 'Do Not Resuscitate' notice on a patient whose been given-up to a diseased, stagnating economy that has surrendered all hope of investing in it's own best hope back to good health.

[knobby109]

It's a mixture of good and bad.It suits some people well enough but messes about others.If the employer has work, you get it and if he hasn't then he's nothing to give you.The ability to have the staff when something crops up without the massive overheads of keeping them on the books when there's no work must be helping the economy greatly.Otherwise the employer would either have to turn down small contracts or shed staff anyway.
The idea of minimum hours is a non starter.An employer can only offer what work there is.

[billybunter]

A small company I worked for went down to three day weeks. Sometimes it meant working the weekend for regular money. It was that or nothing. Some left I needed the money and stayed on.

[Oswald]

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

I see that if You turn down a "Zero Hours" job,They'll stop Your benefits for three months.

This will start when the 'new' Universal Credit is finally rolled out nationally. Who knows when this'll be? It'll depend on where you live.

I don't think that the Jobcentre can offer a claimant a 'zero-hour' contract. What will happen is they can refer you to an employer who is taking on 'zero hour' contracts. The claimant then attends a interview, and if they're not interested or don't want to go on a 'zero hour' contract they can always fluff up the interview.

[scoundrel]

It does not seem fair to me that what amounts to an offer of irregular and casual work is sufficient to justify the DWP in terminating a claim. It would be quite fair though that the claimant should be obliged to accept, and then sign off/sign on whenever the casual work appears/disappears. When the retained zero-hours worker is getting work and money, he is off the DWP's budget and whenever he's not getting any work to support himself and family, he is back on the DWP's budget. I bet the DWP would not be nearly so enthusiastic about making people into casual labour if it meant the DWP had to keep reprocessing paperwork. The DWP would soon rediscover the importance of regular full time employment as the correct way to remove an unemployed claimant from their books.

Someone on a zero hours retainer does not have a job. All they have is a place on a list of people who will be considered as and when casual work shows up. It is a lot like Johnny Friendly in On The Waterfront deciding which men will be allowed to "shape up" and ask for a day's work as longshoremen loading and unloading cargo ships. It is only workable in a depressed labour market because in a bouyant labour market the workers would find regular and secure jobs; this tells me that it is labour exploitation.

[penfold007]

Originally Posted by tittys n beer

The 0 hour contract is an evil little thing, and one that is destroying the job market.
It allows a company to take on more workers than they need and to divide too few hours among too many staff workers.

What happens with a lot of people I know is the opposite. The company hires people full time on a 35 hour week and expects them to do 2+ hours unpaid overtime every day to "show willing" (I'm talking salaried professional positions, not paid per hour in this instance). I know someone that part owns a company that employs graduate engineers with additional professional qualifications (not saying which industry) and he openly admits that he expects all his "chargeable" employees (basically the those in professional positions, but not those doing admin work, who can leave on the dot of five with no complaints) to do 45-50 hours a week, every week, even though they are contracted to do 35.

I told him to hire more staff, as expecting people do do that many extra hours all the time meant he didn't have enough people for the volume of work he was taking on.

[Oswald]

I read that there are 1.4 million people doing zero-hour contracts. This is very good for the government as it reduces the claimant count and the ONS figures will show a drop in unemployment.

Those currently on zero-hour contracts can not sign on to receive JSA.

[Office Boy]

Originally Posted by Oswald

I read that there are 1.4 million people doing zero-hour contracts. This is very good for the government as it reduces the claimant count and the ONS figures will show a drop in unemployment.

Those currently on zero-hour contracts can not sign on to receive JSA.

Which is why these contracts will not be outlawed (they should be). Any excuse will do so any government can mask unemployment figures to make it look as though something is being done. With all the hard lines they are taking on JSA claimers now, it is not surprising that the figures are dropping which makes it look like unemployment is going down. But what is actually happening is that unemployment is either stagnant or it is increasing. When names are removed because your JSA allowance is stopped-for whatever reason, then you do not count that person in the figures for unemployment. Hence the 'Drop'. Looks great on paper, but it is not real. One thing that really gets me is when these figures come out, they always fail to take into account everyone. That is those who claim JSA then do not claim because they have either genuinely found work, which is great news, or they have been removed from the list because they become ineligible to claim for JSA for a variety of reasons. It would be interesting to see that in a separate listing.

But what about the unemployed who cannot claim because they get only a pension to live on yet still want to work and cannot find a job? They make themselves available for work, look for work but cannot get it because they are aged 50+? These people are not included in the unemployment figures simply because they have nothing to do with the jobcentres. And as they don't claim-never have done and never will do, they just get left behind and omitted from the persecution some face about their JSA when they visit the jobcentres.

The government has said it will look at zero hours contracts. No doubt it will ask for certain things to be changed. But it won't get rid of them. They are on the side of the employers, not the people. You only have to look at the tax scandals, expenses and the banks for your proof.