General Chat

Grandson and his wife work in the service industry. He is in a large restaurant where he has no complaints at all about his shifts etc and he gets paid leave and sick pay, in fact he has done very well with them, they have proved themselves to be very compassionate as he needs leave to help his Mum with his father's ill health. His wife, in the job she is in now (fish and chip shop) is doing ok, She gets paid leave and, so far, has not had too much problem with having shifts cancelled. She did work somewhere in a canteen where she was treated very badly, shifts changed, or cancelled and no work for weeks at a time. As this is in a tourist area it was easy to see the reason but the job centre put her there as a proper (not casual) job and she was trying with grandson to get a mortgage.

IGP is quite correct zero hour contracts are essential for work which is done on any kind of casual basis. Many small companies and start ups could not survive / get going without such contracts. The lack of this kind of contract is one of many reasons that small companies fail to start and grow in most of the EU.

Imposing minimum hours to a contract would be an utter disaster for a lot of people.

However the use of such contracts by large firms such as supermarkets and other retailers is plainly abusive.

One feasible option is to deny zero hours contracts to larger firms. However drafting such regulations would be very tricky. Evenso Labour have abuse of zero hours marked down as something that will be changed. If all they do is to impose min hours provision they will hurt the employees far more than the employers. Judging by the inept handling of IR35 by both large parties I am not optimistic.

Glad to see them being held to account.

I think there is no place for them, immoral and exploitative.

Zero Hour do have their place and are essential for casual, piece work or on call work. Workers are entitled to statutory annual leave and the National Minimum Wage in the same way as regular workers, so are not entirely at the mercy of their employer.

It does sound as though this company were not operating entirely within the law, something which they denied. However the case does highlight the need for better transparency and clarity in the wording of contracts.

I am sure that zero hours contracts have proved to be a tremendous boon to some companies, especially small ones, that could not provide consistent employment but did need some help to keep running.

However, so many companies have exploited the facility just to make more money.

Thanks for telling us about this, Ann in G.

There is light on the horizon when a large bunch of compassionate people can join together to see justice done. :-)

I agree having a Grandson and his wife both on zero hours. Luckily in their cases it is not too bad and their hours are quite good and consistent with paid holidays, but it is good that sports direct have to tighten up.

This is how our wonderful goverenment can say that unemployment is at its lowest for years.

A complete lie....... :-P :-P

Just received this.

Sports Direct is upping its game. They were one of the worst abusers of zero hours contracts. [1] But pressure from 38 Degrees members has forced the retail giant to make changes so that its 20,000 zero hours staff will get the basic rights they deserve. [2]

Thousands of us got behind 38 Degrees member Zahera - an ex-employee of Sports Direct - to take them to court over their abuse of the controversial contracts. [3] It was a real David vs Goliath battle. But the case was so strong it didn’t even need to go before a judge.

On Friday, to avoid standing in the dock, Sports Direct signed an out of court settlement. The team of lawyers paid for by 38 Degrees members has made sure that the retail giant is now legally bound to make changes.

Zahera was told she wasn’t entitled to paid holidays or sick pay. Now, Sports Direct has to tell all of its zero hours staff that they have full holiday and sick pay rights. And they have to be totally transparent about zero hours contracts – spelling out what it means in all contracts and job ads. [4]

Sports Direct won’t be making a big deal about this news. So it’s up to us to make sure that people and businesses know that there’re higher standards now. Please will you write to your local paper now, to spread the word? There’s a template and some guidelines here:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/email-your-paper

The news today is only one employer changing their policies. But hopefully, this case will lift the bar for every other employer.