Zero Hour Contract: Benefits and Drawbacks

Who benefits from zero-hour contract?

Literature Review

According to Spruce. (2016), A zero-hour contract may be a proper agreement between a worker and therefore the employer with no guarantee of hours and, inside the simplest cases but not unendingly, no responsibility to easily settle for those hours if any are offered and so the central clause of a zero-hour contract is that it’s no obligations on either side, whereas your leader has no duty to produce you hours, and if they’re doing, you’ve got no commitment to want them up. doubtless, it’s a flexible chance for every parties.

The latest estimate from Office for National Statistics the Labour Force Survey (LFS) shows that in October to Dec 2016 was 905,000, representing 2.8% of all individuals engaged. This latest estimate is a 101,000 on top of that for October to Dec 2015 (804,000 or 2.5% of individuals in employment).

On the other hand, an article from money UK on (2018) explaining the advantages and the disadvantages of a zero-hour contract same that, if you’re Janus-faced with letter of invitation to figure a shift that may not value your whereas, then you’ll simply flip it down. This professional will quickly grow to be a con although if you systematically refuse to figure and will place your zero-hour contract at risk.

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Also money UK have suggested that – As you won’t be working long hours over the week you can use your free time for self-development. If you don’t have the necessary skills to pursue a new career or just want to learn valuable skills which could lead you to a permanent job, then a freedom to find extra work – If you aren’t being offered regular hours as part of your zero-hour contract, then you have the freedom to look elsewhere, previously, you were tied to working for one employer through a zero-hour contract due to an exclusivity clause, this restricted you from working for anyone else; regardless of how little you were being asked to work. In addition, money UK said that it has more jobs to apply for – A zero-hour contract is often all business can offer a job seeker based on their own budgetary restrictions and there are a growing number of businesses in the UK that are offering zero hour contracts, therefore this can actually benefit you because it means you have a wider variety of job roles available to apply for and a better chance to get valuable experience in the industry you want to work in, also Improve your C.V. – When working in any job role it’s important to remember that any experience is positive, especially on your C.V. Therefore, when you apply for future jobs, employers will favour you if you have a continuous history of work experience compared to someone who hasn’t worked for a prolonged period of time, also by taking a zero hour contract you can show future employers this continuous employment record, which can be a chance of permanent work – Some companies reward hard working ‘zero-hour contract workers’ with permanent or fixed contracts after they’ve proven themselves. This means that working hard during your contract really can help you land a steady income, and the best ways to show your employer that you are worth keeping around for the long term is being punctual, dressing appropriately for your role, keeping a polite manner and accepting any extra responsibilities that are asked of you.

According to the UK’s independent fact checking charity (2017) Workers are entitled to the minimum wage or salary, paid vacation, rest breaks and protection against discrimination, overwork and unlawful wage deductions, additionally staff have all the rights that employees have. to boot, they’re entitled to things like protection against unfair dismissal, redundancy pay, a minimum notice amount and time without work for emergencies, since could 2015 exclusivity clauses in time of day contracts, that stop somebody from seizing another job, are illegal. Employers can’t enforce the clause, and since January 2016, employees are ready to claim compensation at Associate in Nursing employment judicature if they’re penalised or discharged for searching for work elsewhere.

According to BBC (2017) Employers say zero-hours contracts permit them to require on employees in response to unsteady demand for his or her services, in sectors like commercial enterprise and welcome, conjointly employers say that a lot of employees appreciate the flexibleness that a zero-hours contract offers them. Some thirty eight of employees within the CIPD analysis represented themselves as used full-time , operating thirty hours or a lot of per week, despite being on zero hours, additionally Michael Burd joint head of employment at the house Lewis Silkin (2017), says the bulk of employers use zero-hour contracts, to not avoid giving workers their rights, however to avoid paying fastened overheads and provides them flexibility over their hands and he points out that this flexibility is envied by employers in troubled economies like Spain and Balkan country, wherever potential prices might counsel employers from seizing employees.

Alternatively, the trade union congress (TUC) (N.D) said that the quantity of individuals on zero-hours contracts has exploded within the last decade. this suggests that a growing variety of operating individuals don’t have a warranted minimum variety of operating hours, and zero-hours employees are a number of the foremost insecure and vulnerable individuals within the force. however whether or not you’re on a zero-hours contract, you continue to have statutory rights, as well as the national pay, paid vacation, and also the right to require rest breaks, however a number of the rights out there to employees just like the right to statutory maternity pay or pay rely upon you earning quite £112 per week from one leader that may be exhausting to satisfy for zero-hours employees, and lots of the time, the issues zero-hours employees face are sensible, not legal that you would possibly be afraid, for instance, that your leader can slash your hours if you complain regarding however you’re treated.

According to an article published by Acas website (2015) Zero hour contracts can be used to provide a flexible workforce to meet a temporary or changeable need for staff. Examples may include a need for workers to cover: unexpected or last-minute events (e.g. a restaurant needs extra staff to cater for a wedding party that just had their original venue cancel on them), temporary staff shortages (e.g. an office loses an essential specialist worker for a few weeks due to bereavement), on-call/bank work (e.g. one of the clients of a care-worker company requires extra care for a short period of time).

In order to examine in terms of UK law according to Legislation website employment rights act (1996) zero-hour contract 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.

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

So for this purpose, an employer makes work or services available to a worker if the employer requests or requires the worker to do the work or perform the services.

According to Breathe web page (2017) Workers on a zero-hour contract are entitled to statutory salary providing they need attained in more than the Lower Earnings Limit, that is £112 per week, (for 2016-2017) from one employer. while several zero hours’ contract employees might not reach this threshold thanks to the spontaneous nature of job being offered, those who do are entitled to receive salary. It ought to be stressed that if a zero-hour contract employee depends on over one job to succeed in the Lower Earnings Limit they’re going to not be entitled salary because it should be reached from the earnings from one employer.

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On the other hand, work smart article (2018) said that there’s a standard misunderstanding that a zero-hours contract employee has no statutory rights. this can be not true. you may be entitled to basic statutory employment rights like the National Salary (NMW), vacation pay and statutory rest breaks, supported the hours that you just are needed to figure, whether or not your written contract terms say that your leader isn’t obligated to supply work which you’re not obligated to simply accept it, as before long as you settle for it – whether or not only for one shift or assignment – there’ll be a legal consent place obliging you to perform that shift or assignment. As long as you conform to perform it ‘personally’ (i.e. to try and do the work yourself instead of by causing some other person, or by employing a restricted company) you may be a ‘worker’. As a result, you may qualify for ‘worker’ rights, as well as the NMW, vacation pay, rest breaks and freedom from discrimination. a number of the statutory rights on the market to employees – like the correct to Statutory Maternity Pay or Statutory pay – rely on you earning on top of the Lower Earnings Limit of £113 per week from one leader. Some zero-hours contract employees could struggle to satisfy this threshold, particularly if you depend upon quite one job. In follow, it’s necessary to recognise that the most barriers to imposing rights as a zero-hours contract employee don’t seem to be typically legal however sensible – particularly the chance of your hours being ‘zeroed down’ if you complain concerning the manner you’re treated. now’s a decent time to consider change of integrity a trades union. there’s no have to tell your leader. Recent status successes at massive retail stores using massive numbers of zero-hours contract employees demonstrate that a collective approach is typically the most effective manner of try this type of abuse.

References

• Hannah Spruce. 2016. Definitive Guide to the Zero Hour Contract. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.highspeedtraining.co.uk/hub/zero-hour-contract-benefits/. [Accessed 16 October 2018].
• Mark Chandler. 2018. Contracts that do not guarantee a minimum number of hours: March 2016. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/contractsthatdonotguaranteeaminimumnumberofhours/march2016#summary. [Accessed 17 October 2018].
• Dom. 2018. Zero hour contracts: The pros and cons. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.money.co.uk/guides/zero-hour-contracts-the-pros-and-cons.htm. [Accessed 18 October 2018].
• Full Fact team. (26th May 2017). The facts about zero hour contracts. [ONLINE] Available at: https://fullfact.org/economy/facts-about-zero-hour-contracts/ Last accessed 10th Nov 2018.
• BBC NEWS. (1st Apr 2015). Q&A: What are zero-hours contracts?. [ONLINE] Available: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23573442 Last accessed 10th Nov 2018.
• TUC. (N.D). Zero-hours contracts. [ONLINE] Available: https://www.tuc.org.uk/workplace-guidance/zero-hours-contracts. Last accessed 10th Nov 2018.
• Acas. (2015). Zero hour contracts. [ONLINE] Available: http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=4468 Last accessed 13th Nov 2018.
• Melissa Jones. (2017). Zero hours contract: sick pay and entitlement.  [ONLINE] Available: https://www.breathehr.com/blog/zero-hours-contract-sick-pay-and-entitlement. Last accessed 18th Nov 2018.
• Work smart. (2018). I’ve got a ‘zero-hours’ contract. Am I entitled to any holiday or sick pay? [ONLINE] Available: https://worksmart.org.uk/work-rights/young-workers/working-students/ive-got-zero-hours-contract-am-i-entitled-any-holiday-or Last accessed 18th Nov 2018.