Zero Hour Contract Employment

Ayelet

Maz wrote: »

Agree. One of the worst aspects of being on a zero hours contract is financial uncertainty.

I work part time in the care industry which seems to embrace the zero hours contract wholesale! It suits me too because I have a part time business which I largely operate in the afternoons/evenings. I'm also willing to do the red eye shift as the care manager struggles to cover the early starts and the hourly rate is enhanced to reflect the unsociable hours.

But, I have seen employers use it to force people to leave by suddenly not having any hours available for them. Also, in my particular case, my contract asks for a months notice if you want to leave. The reality of this is, that once you've submitted your notice, all your hours are taken away from you and reallocated, making you effectively unemployed immediately! Harsh if you then have to wait a further month to start your new job!

Additionally, we are told that we have the right to refuse work for any reason. You're correct when you say that if this happens you might as well look for another job because all of a sudden you don't get offered any more work!

The people I know that work full time in care have to be available to work from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m.to be in with a fighting chance of getting enough hours to make a barely adequate wage. You can only work those kind of hours for so long before you collapse with exhaustion!

I feel that employers who use zero hours contracts have got employees by the short and curlies and would avoid this type of contract in the future, if possible.

Is it also the case with your work that these workers are pretty much in for 5 to 6 days a week? Hardly casual is it? Hotels and care homes are a !!!!!! for this

I'm surprised this isn't talked about more because these days it's expected for the country to run on temp work :rotfl: which is pathetic.

I'd love to do something to change this, but maybe I am just being too ambitious. If there was some sort of change then I'm sure it would help and boost the economy.

Maz

Ayelet wrote: »

Is it also the case with your work that these workers are pretty much in for 5 to 6 days a week? Hardly casual is it? Hotels and care homes are a !!!!!! for this

I'm surprised this isn't talked about more because these days it's expected for the country to run on temp work :rotfl: which is pathetic.

I'd love to do something to change this, but maybe I am just being too ambitious. If there was some sort of change then I'm sure it would help and boost the economy.

A normal run of work would be 7 days on, then 5 days on. We are obliged to work alternate weekends. Carers not finishing until 11 p.m. after a 7 a.m. start is very common because they daren't turn the work away for the reasons I gave above.

Initially this kind of work appeals to single Mums because it's advertised as flexible work but the reality is very different! I know people who have earned so little, that they can't afford to put petrol in their cars to perform their duties. Again, that's not unusual.

The work is draining physically, emotionally and mentally and it won't come as a surprise to know that we are all advised to take a holiday at least every three months due to the nature of the work. Problem there is that your holiday pay is calculated as an average of your last xxx months/weeks pay. So, if you've had booger all hours, your holiday pay is also booger all and you can't afford to take time off. So, you keep going, praying that you can increase your hours to enable you to be able to afford a break. It's a horrible treadmill.

One girl I know took a break and she was £300 down on her next pay check due to this.

I hate zero hours contracts. :mad:

Ayelet

Maz wrote: »

A normal run of work would be 7 days on, then 5 days on. We are obliged to work alternate weekends. Carers not finishing until 11 p.m. after a 7 a.m. start is very common because they daren't turn the work away for the reasons I gave above.

Initially this kind of work appeals to single Mums because it's advertised as flexible work but the reality is very different! I know people who have earned so little, that they can't afford to put petrol in their cars to perform their duties. Again, that's not unusual.

The work is draining physically, emotionally and mentally and it won't come as a surprise to know that we are all advised to take a holiday at least every three months due to the nature of the work. Problem there is that your holiday pay is calculated as an average of your last xxx months/weeks pay. So, if you've had booger all hours, your holiday pay is also booger all and you can't afford to take time off. So, you keep going, praying that you can increase your hours to enable you to be able to afford a break. It's a horrible treadmill.

One girl I know took a break and she was £300 down on her next pay check due to this.

I hate zero hours contracts. :mad:

The holiday pay is something which takes the !!!! in my opinion. Although we are given the basic holidays, it will never work out like this, simply because it's worked out over the past 12 weeks of work. So what happens if you take 2 weeks off during the summer? It's likely that you will get the first week paid, but you can forget the second week because enough hours haven't been acrurred. Pretty much smoke and mirrors, which sucks.

Is it worth setting up some sort of petition?

Russe11

SarEl wrote: »

On a zero hours contract the employer may offer as many hours work as they wish to - anthing from 0 to 48 (or more if there is an opt out). The purpose of such contracts is to allow the employer the freedom to offer work or not as they wish / require. Your fear is very justified. The employer simply does not have to offer him any work at all - he is entitled to no notice of this and no redundancy; the employer simply keeps him on the books with no hours, neither employing him nor sacking him. There is a very slight possibility that doing this may give cause for legal action, but to be honest I am not hopeful. Even a zero hours contract can give rise to establishing contractul hours, but this would require you to establish that contractual hours had become an implied term by virtue of regularly being the same number of hours over a period of time; and you would also need to be able to prove that the employer is lying when he says that there is no work for your OH - which is hard to do, because simply employing someone else to do it is not proof of that because your OH has not right to the work. I am afraid that whilst hindsight is a wonderful thing, it may have been unwise to complain about the contract and terms without having something better lined up in the background. I can certainly understand why he would have done this - but it still didn't make it the wisest thing to do. At least in the short term the best move may be to stick his head down and hope the employer forgets about it with the next problem he gets, and look for another job with greater security or pay.

I thought after 6 weeks continous employment you was entitled to a weeks notice and after 12 weeks a month, should the contract have no term or the contract be zero hours, the ERA states the pilon would be the average earn't over the previous 12 weeks.

Maz

Ayelet wrote: »

The holiday pay is something which takes the !!!! in my opinion. Although we are given the basic holidays, it will never work out like this, simply because it's worked out over the past 12 weeks of work. So what happens if you take 2 weeks off during the summer? It's likely that you will get the first week paid, but you can forget the second week because enough hours haven't been acrurred. Pretty much smoke and mirrors, which sucks.

Is it worth setting up some sort of petition?

Exactly, you simply daren't consider taking a break. When you weigh it all up it's no wonder there's such a massive turnover of staff in the care industry. It must be a nightmare for the employer apart from anything else.

If anyone ever mentions that they're thinking about doing care work I always tell them to talk to me first so that at least they're aware of the pitfalls and can make an informed decision.

I honestly don't see why working to a proper shift pattern can't be used. That way, clients would get good continuity of care and the carers would get a better deal. Staff retention would probably improve as well.

Don't knopw if a petition would have any effect tbh, zero hours contracts give employers an unfair advantage and the whip hand.

It would be interesting to hear from an employer who uses zero hours and hear the other side of the argument?

Ayelet

Maz wrote: »

Exactly, you simply daren't consider taking a break. When you weigh it all up it's no wonder there's such a massive turnover of staff in the care industry. It must be a nightmare for the employer apart from anything else.

If anyone ever mentions that they're thinking about doing care work I always tell them to talk to me first so that at least they're aware of the pitfalls and can make an informed decision.

I honestly don't see why working to a proper shift pattern can't be used. That way, clients would get good continuity of care and the carers would get a better deal. Staff retention would probably improve as well.

Don't knopw if a petition would have any effect tbh, zero hours contracts give employers an unfair advantage and the whip hand.

It would be interesting to hear from an employer who uses zero hours and hear the other side of the argument?

From looking around the internet alot of people seem to be niave with regards to zero hour contacts and a lot of forum posts/case studies are with regards to the employers abuse to this. It is pretty much an legal slave labour.

A petition to bring to bring to downing street could be an option, however with a tory government/lack of support from the general labour market seems unrealistic Also Maz you care enough to reply, but lots of people will stay quiet simply because they don't care or feel the need to care unless they are offered a zero hour contract.

It is all welland easy to say 'look for another job', but every other job out there is a zero hour contract lol.

Maz

Ayelet wrote: »

It is all welland easy to say 'look for another job', but every other job out there is a zero hour contract lol.

Indeed! In my local paper last week there were 6 (yes, a grand total of 6!) jobs advertised and 4 of those adverts were for care and support workers! :rotfl:A booming industry for sure.

If anyone reading this thread has any experience of zero hours on other industries it would be interesting to compare notes as my only experience of these has been in care. I'd advise anyone to do their due diligence and research if offered one of these types of contract.

Thankfully and I know I'm lucky, my business is gaining momentum now and I've been very fortunate to have been offered part time work in an admin capacity. Same number of hours that I've been doing in care but with the luxury of a 9 a.m. start as opposed to 7 a.m. and a regular income. And no more weekend work! :j

Ayelet

Tbh nobody cares unless they are forced on to one of these pathetic contracts. Bosses of companies love the idea because they are the ones with all the power, but of course they wouldn't want to work on one of these themselves.

So much for the 'Big Society'.

Maz

Ayelet wrote: »

Tbh nobody cares unless they are forced on to one of these pathetic contracts. Bosses of companies love the idea because they are the ones with all the power, but of course they wouldn't want to work on one of these themselves.

So much for the 'Big Society'.

I know! The only way to get a fair deal and not feel as if you're being screwed over is to work for yourself!

I'll miss (some of) the clients when I leave but I sure as hell won't miss the carp way care workers are treated.

Savvy_Sue

Maz wrote: »

I honestly don't see why working to a proper shift pattern can't be used. That way, clients would get good continuity of care and the carers would get a better deal. Staff retention would probably improve as well.

Don't knopw if a petition would have any effect tbh, zero hours contracts give employers an unfair advantage and the whip hand.

It would be interesting to hear from an employer who uses zero hours and hear the other side of the argument?

We have a mix of 'bank staff' on zero hours and staff on 'regular' contracts. We need 24/7 cover for part of our work.

The bank staff are used to cover holidays, sickness, staff training, and the inevitable gaps between someone leaving and their replacement starting.

So their hours are NOT regular, and never will be. We may need lots of bank cover one month, and hardly any the next. We use as little as possible. Staff on 'regular' contracts will be on a 4 week rota.

As far as holidays go, we take 12.08% of the hours you've worked and pay it to you quarterly, as a separate line on your payslip. Oh, and we don't pay until the month after the month in which you worked, so at the end of June our Bank Workers will be paid for May, and so on.