Should employers opt out on zero hour contracts?

October 17, 2018

Should employers opt out on zero hour contracts?

According to the UK’s Independent Fact Finding Charity (2017) they state that an estimated 905,000 people are on a zero hour’s contract for their main employment. However, The Liberal Democrats (2015) states that Labour have failed to meet their 20 year promise to ban zero hour’s contracts.

The Government describes the zero hour contracts and said that Zero hour contracts are great for employers, especially those who own a business which has unpredictable daily outcomes, On the other hand The main negatives surrounding zero hour contracts seem to based on employees rather than business owners.

In most cases zero hours’ contracts mean that an employer recruits a 'worker.' However, the way the relationship with that worker develops may enhance the employment status to that of an 'employee', who has additional employment rights.

In order to compare the BBC (2017) suggests that new figures based on an analysis of Office for National Statistics data reveal that 105,000 more people were on contracts that do not provide assurance to work in 2016 compared with the same period in 2015 that's an increase of nearly 14%, and 30% higher than 2014 according to the BBC (2017) .

Also according to Labour leader Ed Miliband (2017), believed that zero hour contracts “spread like an epidemic across our economy”. He’s promised to turn his words into action and has stated that a future Labour government would ban “the worst abuses of the system” and announce measures to protect workers on these “exploitative” contracts.

So in order to examine Employment Rights Act (1996) , Zero hour contracts means a contract of employment or other worker's contract under which :

(a)the undertaking to do or perform work or services is an undertaking to do so conditionally on the employer making work or services available to the worker, and

(b)there is no certainty that any such work or services will be made available to the worker.

So far the giant retailer sports direct started to use fewer zero hours contracts after criticism according to FT times news edition (2016) .

References

Bytemark . (26th May 2017). The facts about zero hours’ contracts.

Available: https://fullfact.org/economy/facts-about-zero-hour-contracts/.

Last Accessed 08/02/2018

Laura Archer . (1^th April 2015 ). Labour's 20 year old promise on zero hours contracts.

Available: https://www.libdems.org.uk/labour-20-year-old-promise-on-zero-hours-contracts.

Last Accessed 09/02/2018.

Admin Capify. (3rd June 2015). The Advantages and Disadvantages of Zero Hour Contracts.

Available: http://www.capify.co.uk/advantages-disadvantages-zero-hour-contracts/ Last Accessed 08/02/2018

Stewart Gee. (2^nd March 2015). Zero hours contracts.