As a new college year commences and students return to campus, many will need to secure a part-time job in order to fund the cost of studying and living in Dublin, as well as social pursuits. The typical option for students seeking work is in retail and services. These are industries that incorporate shift work, often during evenings and weekends. This creates a demand for additional labour and traditionally affords students a flexibility to fit their work hours around their college commitments.
However, the retail and services industry are also notorious for the employment of zero-hour contracts – contracts without a specific number of working hours guaranteed. For students relying on a steady rota of hours to work per week, zero-hour contracts deny the possibility of a stable income. They do so by placing workers at the mercy of employers, who can take or leave employees at little notice. By making work scarce, this makes work more significant when it is available and can lead students to choose work over lectures or time in the library, in order to prove a readiness to work or simply to make up enough hours to pay the rent.
By making work scarce, this makes work more significant when it is available and can lead students to choose work over lectures or time in the library
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Beyond the wage fluctuation of these contracts, such arrangements make it difficult for employees to access credit and are highly disruptive to social and family life. To have to work at such little notice makes it difficult to plan ahead for events. Furthermore, for parents it is often a struggle to find childcare options, given that most childcare facilities are pre-paid for agreed times.
For anyone employed on these contracts, they are protected by the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997. This law guarantees them to be paid for 25 per cent of the hours they are required to be available for work in a week, even if they were not called upon during that time. This is a clause worth remembering, as managers do not always take it upon themselves to enforce it, such that employees are often underpaid. Although this represents a minimum assurance, given that the labour market has become significantly more casual since 1997, one cannot help but feel that any such legislation is outmoded to serve its protective function.
In order that zero-hour contracts do not become par for the course and replace regular work, they should be accompanied by a higher level of compensation. After all, a contract of employment is a trade-off between two competing parties. With each trying secure a more favourable deal for themselves. Employees trade in their time and skills, whereas employers trade in a level of remuneration. Zero-hour contracts increase the trade-in on time, despite the irony of employees often working less than on regular hour contracts.
In order to work, say, 16 hours, employees on regular hours have to be available for that time, during the same period each week. For employees on zero-hour contracts, they may have to sign up for a much greater number of shifts in order to have a chance of getting two of them. Moreover, while they may have signed up for a full week’s work, they may receive no hours whatsoever.
Employers would benefit from the convenience of having workers available at short notice without having them on a permanent roster, while the employees would benefit from a higher rate of pay as a result of their precarious working conditions
Other scenarios that these employees face is being sent home from work early on quiet days or having shifts cancelled at short notice. In both cases, employees lose income. The extra time they must commit to planning around shifts impedes on private life, while their income is insecure and prone to vagary. In return for this trade-off of increased availability of hours and diminished security of income, employers should have to compensate employees accordingly in the manner of short-term contractors. Indeed, there should be a precarity levy on those who require employment services at short notice where there is no guarantee of future work. An example of this is tradespeople for hire, who are paid for once-off jobs at a rate higher than in a regular working contract.
Employers would benefit from the convenience of having workers available at short notice without having them on a permanent roster, while the employees would benefit from a higher rate of pay as a result of their precarious working conditions. With the implementation of such a measure, one would hope to reduce the overall percentage of workers on such contracts, as businesses seek to shore up their costs. In doing so, this would help to assure the security of the Irish labour force by incentivising contracts with guaranteed hours as the norm.
In such a situation, zero-hour contracts would return to their originally envisaged position as a resource to provide for additional staffing to cover a business’ employees and not as the standard means of employment.
