Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#1
I use 'Zero Hour', although this is mostly about 'Zero Hours', to keep hope alive within myself that the day
is fast approaching when we shall each get an opportunity to replace our current 'interim administration' with a more enlightened form of Government. [sigh]
[In truth, this thread has more to do with my response to today's Blog offering from BarryW...]
The newspaper's Letter-Editor has thought-fit to lump nine letters under the one heading, but only the four I set out below say something about why I cannot come out firmly against the basic idea of Zero-Hours employment contracts. The first letter is the most telling, but thereafter they are set in no particular order...
"Simon Goodley and Phillip Inman list a number of disadvantages with zero-hours contracts but overlook the one you would expect the government to seize on in its campaign to get people off benefits (Report, 5 August). People leaving jobseekers' allowance for paid work have their benefits removed or adjusted in the expectation of a proper pay packet out of which the rent and council tax will be paid. If the pay turns out to be a fraction of that expected, the immediate result is unpaid bills, most likely rent arrears, followed by attempts to persuade the local authority to adjust housing benefit. It can easily reach the point where the wages for a week are less than the jobseekers' allowance - I have come across instances where no work has been offered for two weeks or more, the next step being a trip to the food bank.
The days when casual work was done by "non-working wives" for pin money while their husbands were breadwinners have long gone. The employer/employee relationship should mean commitment on both sides and the government should realise that a flexible labour force has harmful effects on the benefits system it is so keen to reduce.
Les Masters
Weston-super-Mare, Somerset"
"Policymakers should clarify to British businesses the difference between freelancers and zero-hours workers. Freelancers are independent workers who choose to undertake often unusual and unpredictable working patterns as part of a mutually agreed, mutually beneficial contract. Zero-hours workers are salaried employees who do not have the same degree of choice or control, and are unlikely to have the same negotiating power as highly skilled knowledge-based freelance workers. Businesses that confuse the two put the wellbeing of their employees at risk - and they miss the benefits that engaging freelancers could bring to them.
Chris Bryce
CEO, PCG - The Voice of Freelancing"
"I run a fruit-growing business and my wife runs a children's nursery. Neither of us is in control of weather or the whims of parents. Zero-hours contracts allow us to tailor our labour to prevailing events. All our staff get holiday pay and are entitled to sick pay as the law requires. The bottom line is that we can employ people on fixed-hours contracts when you, the consumers, are prepared to pay for them to sit at home while you work. We do not use these contracts as a way of denying anyone employment rights but to allow us to run a business which provides us, as well as our staff, with a reasonable living.
Andrew and Sue Chesson
Sevenoaks, Kent"
"I was on a zero-hours contract with a high street store while at university; it enabled me to work during the Christmas sales and over the summer months - but not during term time. It was a means to an end until I got a job in my profession and it helped me pay off my overdraft - but it's not a sustainable system for people requiring permanent, full-time employment to pay the bills.
Jenna Mahoney
Luton, Bedforshire"
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/05/zero-hours-dont-add-upIgnorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#2
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
#3
its a disgusting contract,and should be outlawed.for what I can understand via a news report.victorian in concept,run by Victorian standerds [government].
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#4
It certainly is run badly Brian, but it could be run a great deal better.
Why I don't hate the thing entirely is that, with the way things are at present - and as they are set for the near future, for there is not going to be another industrial revolution any time soon. A way has to found to get the population working again, especially the young, as this is not going to be full-time work for all it must turn into part-time work for most, and further education for the remainder.
A great deal more flexibility, yes. But with an eye to furthering the prospects of each and all.
As is pointed out in the first letter in #1. Where the current half-hearted idea falls down is in the pressure to get all off Benefits and into .....
And into what? Employment, work, or what, penury, homelessness, debt, slavery?
A way has to be found of employing the energy and talents of the 'working' population without loading all the downside upon those least able to withstand the cost.
This, at present, is just another debt-bomb waiting to go off: Profits up, rhetoric satisfied and to hell with the bulk of the population.
The rich yet again living (and profiting) off the poor.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#5
As proof, if proof were needed, that Scotsmen have a sense of humour;this is what Australians are finding funny at the moment...
A song...
[URL][/URL]
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#6
we could always do the same as many did when the corporate tax non payers were outed and simply boycott those businesses that operate the zero hours policy.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
#7
Howard.
Zero hours contract are a response to the excessive employment protection laws to enable businesses to run efficiently and profitably.
Get rid of them and other means will have to be found or a lot of people will be out of work all together and a lot of businesses will go bust.
This and agency work are two reasons for this recession, the deepest and longest for 80-90 years, not to result in the kind of mass unemployment many feared.
I am currently organising a pension scheme for a significant middle sized business where half of the employees are on zero hour contracts. Without such contracts the basis of this business will change, 200 plus of people will be out of work, a lot of profit lost and a lot tax tax not longer will be paid to HMRC.
You need to think of the consequences of restrictive practises.
If you want unemployment levels at Spanish and French levels then by all means make life harder for businesses to operate efficiently and profitably. It is people out fo work who will suffer even more.
Blimey - if what you say Howard is what the left call caring - vulnerable people really could do without caring.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#8
McDonald's ties nine out of 10 workers to zero-hours contracts
"...The Guardian has seen a contract for staff at one of the largest Subway franchisees, Made To Order, which runs more than 100 Subways in Greater Manchester and Yorkshire.
The contract states: "The company has no duty to provide you with work. Your hours of work are not predetermined and will be notified to you on a weekly basis as soon as is reasonably practicable in advance by your store manager. The company has the right to require you to work varied or extended hours from time to time."
It adds that by signing the contract all non-management staff - or "sandwich artists" - waive their right under working time regulations to work no more than 48 hours a week...
...By comparison, sandwich chain Pret A Manger said it does not use zero-hours contracts and that all staff are on a minimum of eight guaranteed hours a week....
...The IoD criticised calls for a change to the rules and said banning the contracts would have extremely damaging results for businesses and employees. It said the flexibility was vital to a strong economy.
Alexander Ehmann, head of regulatory policy at the IoD, said: "Calls to ban zero-hours contracts are deeply misguided and any such action would have extremely damaging results. It would hurt thousands of employees who rely on the flexibility such contracts allow and employers, especially small and medium-sized firms, would struggle to hire the staff they need to meet varying demand.
"Countries with a flexible labour market tend to have lower unemployment and higher employment, and one of the reasons that the UK economy has not gone the way of southern Europe is because employers have been able to adapt swiftly to changing demand.""
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/aug/05/mcdonalds-workers-zero-hour-contracts
As I said, I am all for 'flexibility', but not for one sided flexibility. There needs to be flexibility on the unemployment and housing benefit front also.
I hear no calls for utilities or landlords to be more flexible, in not charging for what they provide in times when these employees are not needed at work.
It must be noted that many such contracts forbid the employee from having another job elsewhere.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#9
this is all one way in favour of the employer.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#10
It favours the Political rhetoric too Howard. Lots of talk of employment up and job creation, yet this is all there is;an hour or two if your lucky and if your not too busy job-seeking elsewhere when the call to action comes.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
#11
barry,it may be good for the employer but not the employee,unable to get tax credits,morgages etc.at present acording to a news paper report most are sofa surfing because they haven't got a regular wage.letting agents like to see regular pay slips with the same amount give or take 20 quid ether side.
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,931
#12
Zero Hour contracts are indefensible as far as those stuck with them are concerned.
People need to know when and how long they are working after all they do have a live outside work, that is if they can afford a life.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
#13
I do have to laugh at people who attack these contracts who never have the problem of matching productive capacity to orders or have widely varying demands for their services.
If you lot had your way:
...a lot of elderly people will not get the day care they need when a regular professional carer goes sick.
...YOU will have to pay a lot more for many goods and services because employers have to have staff being paid to do nothing.
...YOU will not receive the service levels you have become used to because of compromises and longer waiting times for good and services.
...HMRC will receive less tax revenue
...There willl be an increased demand for benefits
...YOUR services will have to be cut to pay for the reduced tax revenues and pay more benefits
...UK unemployment will rise substantially as orders get lost to overseas competitors who have more flexible labour markets.
...UK unemployment will rise substantially as the UK loses any flexible market edge it currently when businesses move abroad.
Yes people - be careful what you wish for or attacking things you do not understand.
Things are bad enough now and you want to make things worse.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#14
...a lot of elderly people rely upon such care workers that today get paid much less than the minimum wage. That thing you say Barry that holds wages down, yet it is the steady downgrade that you argue for here.
...No! See ***
...What service levels?
...Less Tax revenue? From whom? Nobody stuck on working 10 hours or so a week will pay tax, unless they are to get £200/hour or so, is that who you mean?
...***The company need not pay for staff that are idle IF those same staff can have their wages made up through Benefits, after all "We are all in this together."
...Taxes will have to rise (in any case). Why should a company gain the benefit of a flexible workforce and pay nothing for it?
...I am certainly not saying that flexibility is a No-no, just that it MUST be a two-way street, and in any case unemployment is far too much a statistical convenience. Nobody in your position has anything to teach the unemployed about what it is like to be unemployed, especially in this day and age.
...For "flexible market edge" read The poorest shouldering the most weight.
What would make things worse is voting Conservative (or UKIP) come the next election. I am none too sure that voting for New Labour would be that much better, but it would be no worse.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,931
#15
Glad to give you a laugh Barry it must be nice living in your own little cocoon. All I will ask is with no savings behind you could you survive never knowing if you were getting your miniscule wage that day
Any well run business should know when they need staff and employ them accordingly, this zero hour fiasco is purely designed to back up poor management.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
#16
And you would prefer the consequences then Jan?
Do not dodge the question as you cannot have it both ways.
Idiotic left wing meddling destroys jobs time and time again. Have you learned nothing from Labour's terrible record in every period of government that cursed this country?
Guest 756- Registered: 6 Jun 2012
- Posts: 727
#17
Barry has his head in a bucket again!!!
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#18
what the issue has to do with last government is a mystery to me.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
#19
Howard - the issue is about the damaging consequences of protectionism and restricting labour markets. This is something all Labour governments have done and every time they have damaged competitiveness and lost jobs getting us into a massive economic crisis.
No Lesley, my eyes are open. Those that are closed belong to people who refuse to acknowledge consequences of ill-considered protectionism. You need to get the priorities right, if you want more jobs and economic growth you must not take action to reduce flexible labour markets, if anything the opposite is needed.
Guest 1694- Registered: 24 Feb 2016
- Posts: 1,087
#20
There is a place for Zero hours contracts - agreed - when they are mutual and work for mutual benefit of both employee and employer. However, their use has proliferated beyond where they are immediately applicable and in many cases (not all or necessarily even the majority, just many) they have become exploitative of the labour force contracted in this way with some employers even using the definition of "zero hours" as part-time employment to rapidly turn over employees before they accrue any rights or employment benefits.
The drawbacks for the employee on a zero hours contract are many, many, many (try getting a bank loan, a mortgage, life assurance, hire purchase agreement, etc.when you have a zero hours contract - difficult in some cases, impossible in others). The drawbacks for an employer are less readily determinable (I'm sure there are some), personally, as an employer, I would not deploy such type of contract for my own employees because I want their commitment, loyalty and dedication to the company to share in the benefits during the good times and help in seeing the business through the bad times. But the benefits for an employer in deploying zero hours contracts are many, many, many, especially if the employer has little or no social conscience.
