Zero-hour contracts probably started with good intentions to tackle the problem of students fitting work around their academic commitments. Students would look for work that they could do between lectures and with hours that could be changed according to their shifting timetables, allowing time for those second week seminars and flexibility close to exam time. Employers would be unable to guarantee them hours unless they could guarantee to turn up for those hours. However, if students were willing to work extra during the holidays and tourist season and not work at all around exam time, then why didn’t they just write “zero hours” on the contract and sort everything out under bonus hours? It was a win-win. However, the example outlined above relies on both the employer and the employee trusting each other. The contract is useless if the employer won’t give hours or if the employee won’t take them.
Although zero-hour contracts have existed for over twenty years, the amount of employers using them became widespread during the economic crisis as a means of saving money. With this, a relationship of trust turned to one of exploitation, and so zero-hours became synonymous with the precarity of underemployment. Because employers have the upperhand in negotiation, increases in flexibility tend to be to their advantage. While, in theory, the employee could choose not to take a few hours offered, this isn’t likely and it isn’t nearly as strong a bargaining tool as the possibility of the employer withholding hours from an employee who has displeased them. It manages to undermine basic worker rights and protections, creating an individualist culture in which employees must scrape by to earn each hour they get. Whilst the minimum wage per hour must be paid, there is no guarantee of a minimum wage per month, which is arguably more important, as it guarantees a standard of living. Often, workers must be “on call” for a set number of hours a week, unable to book anything or do anything with those hours while not being paid anything for the time set aside. Employers can arbitrarily reward or punish their employees, with massive effects on individual paychecks. In addition, these contracts extend an employer’s power to undermine laws against firing – they don’t need to give a month’s notice if at any moment they can simply stop giving hours. Although the zero hour contract exists in the US, there are some companies that at least try to seek the advice of attorneys similar to this Frederick business attorney before they hire employees for their business, ensuring that they and their employees are protected.
Zero-hour contracts undermine so many protections that they are likely illegal in the UK despite their widespread use and long-standing.
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Zero-hour contracts undermine so many protections that they are likely illegal in the UK despite their widespread use and long-standing. In the one case where a zero-hour contract has reached the UK Supreme Court, it was found invalid. The argument was that even though the written contract allowed for zero hours, the employee signed on the understanding that he would get work, (otherwise he would have had no reason to sign) and so the contract obliged a minimum amount of work regardless of what was written. It is still unclear if this invalidates all zero-hour contracts or just that particular one. Zero-hour contracts were also just recently unanimously banned by New Zealand’s parliament.
In Ireland, while the law doesn’t disclaim zero-hour contracts, it prevents them from going all the way down to zero. The employee must be paid the equivalent of 25 per cent of the hours they could potentially work or are on call for. For example, if someone could work anywhere from zero to twenty hours a week according to the contract, they must be paid for five hours of work even if they didn’t work for five hours that week. This clause has improved the quality of zero hour contracts and has hindered the extent of their use, in comparison to the UK workforce figure of 5 per cent.
Zero-hour contracts affect single people and working parents, and destroy the security of a family income, contributing to homelessness by making people uncertain of whether they’ll earn enough hours to scrape together the rent.
Students are disproportionately hit by zero hours, given our widespread employment in the service industry, and so we are right to stand up for ourselves. However, too often it is viewed as a solely student issue and receives a lack of political attention. In fact, zero-hour contracts affect single people and working parents, and destroy the security of a family income, contributing to homelessness by making people uncertain of whether they’ll earn enough hours to scrape together the rent. Or imagine trying to get a mortgage with a zero-hour contract as your security. There have been strong calls to ban zero-hour contracts entirely, but there is still hope that a once-positive system can be salvaged. We need to push to change the zero-hour contract so that it once again becomes a flexibility, a mark of trust between employer and employee and not a means of extracting more leverage. McDonald’s, for example, has made it clear that its employees must not be “on call”, they work out when suits the employee and give hours in advance, accordingly. This practice should become widespread – minimum-notice requirements must be ensured and the hour safety net increased.
