Sportsdirect; 90% of staff on zero hour contracts

CLAPTON

dori2o wrote: »

It's not about full time or part time workers, it's about fairness and ensuring everyone, including employers and big businesses are acting fairly, and more to the point, acting morally.

In theory you could be one of these employees on a 0 hours contract and not have any work for 4/5/6/7+ weeks.

This person is classed as being employed despite not earning so would not be able to claim JSA. They won't be paying enough contributions to guarantee being able to claim benefits in the future.

Abolishing 0 hours contracts may lead to fewer people being employed by the company, but at least those who are employed will have a guaranteed income, guraranteed hours, will be able to plan their outgoings from week to week, will be less likely to get into debt with rent, CT, utilities etc as they will actually have money to pay them with.

0 hours contracts are wrong in so many ways, but I fear the Govt will do nothing about them as they help to fudge the unemployment figures even more.

IMO another thing that needs abolishing from employment contracts is the clause that says employees must be available as and when required to work even at short notice. This should be voluntary, not mandatory.

This prevents part time employees from working 2nd jobs during the hours they don't work for their current employer. If an employer has staffing problems they should resolve that by hiring more staff, not trying to cover up the issue by making other people work the hours.

So you do believe it's better to have a small number of people fully employed rather than a large number of people part time employed.
Have you asked the people concerned?

It certainly isn't ideal for people that want full time work but your alternative of unemployment isn't ideal either.

Sampong

Not exactly a company that believes in social responsibility by the looks of things......

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/01_january/31/inside_out.shtml

dori2o

CLAPTON wrote: »

So you do believe it's better to have a small number of people fully employed rather than a large number of people part time employed.
Have you asked the people concerned?

It certainly isn't ideal for people that want full time work but your alternative of unemployment isn't ideal either.

So you didn't actually read what I wrote then?

Show me where I mentioned only being 'full time' employees

Essentially, those on 0 hour contracts, who are not working and have not for a number of weeks, are unemployed aren't they? They are not brining in a salary and are not actively working.

If there is work to do give people a minimum number of contracted hours, and if employers won't voluntarily do it, force them to.

CLAPTON

dori2o wrote: »

So you didn't actually read what I wrote then?

Show me where I mentioned only being 'full time' employees

Essentially, those on 0 hour contracts, who are not working and have not for a number of weeks, are unemployed aren't they? They are not brining in a salary and are not actively working.

If there is work to do give people a minimum number of contracted hours, and if employers won't voluntarily do it, force them to.

indeed you didn't say 'fulltime'.

so what would your minimum number of hours be and how many workers would be sacked?

wotsthat

My impression of Sports Direct is a company operating on small margins marketing to the more chavvy part of the market.

I suspect that their business model is dependent upon keeping costs to a minimum and that their customer base will be less than receptive to paying higher prices.

Working for the minimum wage is effectively working for benefits. The government could ban zero hour contracts or increase the minimum wage or decrease working tax credits. It wouldn't really benefit Sports Direct employees other than providing an incentive to get a better job elsewhere but if those jobs were readily available they wouldn't be at Sports Direct in the first place.

Once someone leaves education with a poor set of qualifications it's going to be an uphill struggle for them no matter how much hand wringing we do.

bugslet

grizzly1911 wrote: »

I can understand how works for certain roles in say couriers/building were there may or may not be work. When it gets applied to something like retail/services then it just shows up poor management and scheduling.
.

I run a haulage company with a mixed fleet of vans and trucks and our work is very ad hoc, but I pay my drivers 40 hours wether they turn a wheel or not. Most of the time it works because I do my job, ie, find them work to do. I know it's different to retail, but surely there has to be some rhyme and reason to footfall in a shop and Sportsdirect should be able to plan accordingly.

dori2o wrote: »

It's not about full time or part time workers, it's about fairness and ensuring everyone, including employers and big businesses are acting fairly, and more to the point, acting morally.

In theory you could be one of these employees on a 0 hours contract and not have any work for 4/5/6/7+ weeks.

This person is classed as being employed despite not earning so would not be able to claim JSA. They won't be paying enough contributions to guarantee being able to claim benefits in the future.



IMO another thing that needs abolishing from employment contracts is the clause that says employees must be available as and when required to work even at short notice. This should be voluntary, not mandatory.

This prevents part time employees from working 2nd jobs during the hours they don't work for their current employer. If an employer has staffing problems they should resolve that by hiring more staff, not trying to cover up the issue by making other people work the hours.

I agree with most of what you say,b ut in our particular instance we have to respond to customers, otherwise those customers go elsewhere, but then again it leads to overtime. I appreciate your example is different because you are talking about part-time, I just thought I would point out that there are legitimate reasons for its inclusion.

ukcarper

CLAPTON wrote: »

So you do believe it's better to have a small number of people fully employed rather than a large number of people part time employed.
Have you asked the people concerned?

It certainly isn't ideal for people that want full time work but your alternative of unemployment isn't ideal either.

You could ask the people on zero hours contract I suspect the majority would prefer not to be on them.

grizzly1911

CLAPTON wrote: »

indeed you didn't say 'fulltime'.

so what would your minimum number of hours be and how many workers would be sacked?

Why do they need to be on a zero hour contract? Why can't they be simply employ part time staff and advertise the extra hours they need filling?

If they can't resource and roster staff properly, that demonstrates poor management.

It would allow the staff flexibility to pick up other work elsewhere outside their allotted slot or take up additional ours with the store if they so wished.

Losing on a couple of staff a store would hardly picking next to no hours would arguably be the responsible thing to do and fairer on the staff involved.

Whatever way it is being done it is unlikely that any NI or tax is being put into "the pot" for these part time staff.

Perhaps you consider the Bangkok working conditions hilighted in the article posted by Sampong something we as a nation should aspire too?

CLAPTON

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Why do they need to be on a zero hour contract? Why can't they be simply employ part time staff and advertise the extra hours they need filling?

If they can't resource and roster staff properly, that demonstrates poor management.

It would allow the staff flexibility to pick up other work elsewhere outside their allotted slot or take up additional ours with the store if they so wished.

Losing on a couple of staff a store would hardly picking next to no hours would arguably be the responsible thing to do and fairer on the staff involved.

Whatever way it is being done it is unlikely that any NI or tax is being put into "the pot" for these part time staff.

Perhaps you consider the Bangkok working conditions hilighted in the article posted by Sampong something we as a nation should aspire too?

There is a big difference between what is clearly desirable and what the LAW should be.

If there were lots of better jobs around, then people would choose not to work for sport direct.

I question whether it is better to be employed part time or be unemployed fulltime. I would prefer the people decided for themselves rather than you.

Your sarcastic comments about Bangkok working conditions merely show your breath taking ignorance of the realities of conditions in many parts of the world.

wotsthat

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Why do they need to be on a zero hour contract? Why can't they be simply employ part time staff and advertise the extra hours they need filling?

If zero hour contracts are so terrible how come Sports Direct manage to get staff at all? Why don't they go and get a full time job with a company car and private health insurance?

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Perhaps you consider the Bangkok working conditions hilighted in the article posted by Sampong something we as a nation should aspire too?

If working conditions are so terrible how come Bangkok suppliers manage to get staff at all?

Sports Direct staff and their Thai suppliers staff are a world apart so it's a nonsense to try and imply the direction of travel is from UK standards to South-East Asian standards. Just the opposite is happening.

Sports Direct staff made a number of choices which led them there. South-East Asian workers didn't have the luxury of so many choices.

In both cases the alternative is worse. If there was a better alternative they'd be doing it.