Zero hours contract, but no shifts for two weeks........

Pont

catwoman73 wrote: »

Pont, that's terrible. So did your job just 'end' by them not giving you any more hours?

Sounds like a way of getting out of redundancy pay as well - if you had been on a proper contract, you would have been entitled to redundancy if they let you go after 8 years, but it seems that you wouldn't have been entitled
QUOTE]

In effect my job did just 'end'.

By this time (after about 7 years) I was totally fed up and started to kick up a fuss. After around a year of going to meetings, and little or no salary during this period, we ended up at ET. The upshot was that I was deemed an employee in the usual sense of the term and was afforded all rights, as any any permanent employee, including a redundancy payment. It was mentioned by the ETJ that this was an 'onerous' contract of employment.

However, I had to jump through hoops and undergo a lot of stress during this period. I stuck by my guns despite being pressurised to give up. Many of my colleagues ended up with nowt because they didn't feel strong enough to fight their case.

ohreally

Zero hours contracts = the spawn of satan.

To attempt to improve your lot, you're negotiating with the powerful for the powerless.

sunflower1283

I work for the nhs I had no work last week and a few days the week before. I've tried getting a job internally but to no avail. I'd leave but there are very few admin jobs around here and I can't work I. A shop as I have no retail experience. I dont get holiday leave either.

Gingernutty

Takeaway_Addict wrote: »

Its the employees fault if they stay on a zero hour contract too long, there are jobs out there with fixed hours if they so wish but it may not be in the area they want.

Not saying its easy but it can be done.

Have you checked my other thread on this forum? I've done nothing but look and interview for jobs after coming to the end of a fixed term contract at the end of January.

The union rep reckons I'm doing the "sensible and pragmatic" thing by working on the bank.

Jobs are scarce, I get that. However, these zero hours contracts seem to have taken the place of short term contracts (where at least you knew when the end was nigh) which covered maternity or long term sick leave.

The words which turn me right off a job is where I read in the advert "must be flexible".

Even those jobs guaranteeing a specific number of hours aren't necessarily going to have fixed hours where one can plan one's life and perhaps get another part time job.

If you can't work weekends one week, weekday mornings the following week and then a couple of long days the week after and all this with maybe 24-48 hours notice, then you may as well not bother applying.

LittleVoice

sunflower1283 wrote: »

I work for the nhs I had no work last week and a few days the week before. I've tried getting a job internally but to no avail. I'd leave but there are very few admin jobs around here and I can't work I. A shop as I have no retail experience. I dont get holiday leave either.

So you are working as bank staff.

You are entitled to paid leave. NHS bank staff are normally paid this every payday - itemised separately on the payslip. Does your employer not do this?

dktreesea

Gingernutty wrote: »

Back to my original question - if I can't find any other work for the two weeks in August, am I unemployed and can I claim anything?

Yes. You go online and make a new claim for jsa. This will get you an appointment with your local jobcentre. I'm a bit rusty on the details, but 0845 6088 545, option 2 would be able to advice you of the exact procedure.

So, provided you get less than 16 hours work a week during your working period (fortnightly?) you can sign on.

So at the end of the first 2 week period you declare the hours you have worked. Say it's zero hours. So you should then get the full £71 a week for those two weeks (assuming you are over 25). Say, though, in the following two weeks, you work a couple of shifts. Again, you go in and sign on, and put the number of hours you have worked and your gross income, and they then prorata the jsa and pay you whatever you are entitled to.

It doesn't always follow that someone who has worked less than 16 hours a week will get jsa, because it depends on what they earned as well as the hours worked. Also, and this is the bit you would have to discuss with the jobcentre advisor, a condition of getting jsa is to be looking for work. So, during this time, you might have to apply for permanent jobs in your field of expertise, even if it would require you to relocate.

Where this can get tedious is in the weeks when you work more than 16 hours a week, you sign off, and then, in the weeks you get less, you sign back on again. So you can end up feeling like a yo yo.

There are other complications - like whether it's contribution based on income based jsa you would qualify for. Be prepared for tedium AND make sure you double check everything if someone tells you that you don't qualify. That is nonsense. There would be heaps of people on zero hours contracts who are signing on and off several times a year due to the very problems you mention.

telboyo

I am on a zero hours contract and manage ok on it as the shifts tend to be 10 or 11 hrs when I do work. It pays holiday pay at the rate described above. BUT and this is a big but the employer reckons a normal workday is 5 hrs and pays the rest of the shift as flat rate overtime. This means that holiday pay is only accrued on the first 5hrs a day. The OP who flippantly said "take holidays" obviously has no idea how difficult it is to accrue a holiday pot. Each shift worked pays 4.09 into the holiday pot ( 12.% of 5 *£6.8 =4.09).

dktreesea

telboyo wrote: »

I am on a zero hours contract and manage ok on it as the shifts tend to be 10 or 11 hrs when I do work. It pays holiday pay at the rate described above. BUT and this is a big but the employer reckons a normal workday is 5 hrs and pays the rest of the shift as flat rate overtime. This means that holiday pay is only accrued on the first 5hrs a day. The OP who flippantly said "take holidays" obviously has no idea how difficult it is to accrue a holiday pot. Each shift worked pays 4.09 into the holiday pot ( 12.% of 5 *£6.8 =4.09).

Is that legal, to employ people for over 8 hours a day, but then decide only a few hours is subject to holiday pay?

Gingernutty

dktreesea wrote: »

Is that legal, to employ people for over 8 hours a day, but then decide only a few hours is subject to holiday pay?

Yup. Overtime doesn't accrue holiday pay.

If someone is contracted for a minimum of, say, 8 hours a week, then only those eight hours will accrue holiday time/pay and the flat rate single time overtime, no matter how many hours were worked, does not.

Hence some readers' hollow laughter at the original suggestion of taking holiday time.

sunflower1283

LittleVoice wrote: »

So you are working as bank staff.

You are entitled to paid leave. NHS bank staff are normally paid this every payday - itemised separately on the payslip. Does your employer not do this?

Am i I've never been told I am entitled to holidays. I'll have a look at my payslip as I've not got a contract.

Gingernut - have you applied for internal jobs? I've tried but don't get anywhere. I find the interview questions reallly hard.