Today’s zero-hours debate offers a unique give thousands of low-paid workers more security.
Today members of parliament have the chance to resume the second reading of Ian Mearns’ private members’ bill on zero-hours contracts. The timing of this bill could not be more appropriate.
Currently undefined in law, zero-hours contracts have become a byword for low pay, underemployment, income insecurity and exploitation. The rapid growth in zero-hours contracts since 2010 is indicative of an economic ‘recovery’ based on ever greater insecurity for workers, lower wages and rising inequality.
While high profile cases, such as Sports Direct and the social care sector, have shone a light on the ways employers are using zero-hour contracts to erode the rights of their workers and to lock them into insecure arrangements, the true extent of ‘zero-hours Britain’ has been difficult to establish.
In 2013 a survey of workers found that 583,000 zero-hours contracts were used across the UK; when the same question was put to employers, this figure rose to 1.4 million.
The shocking conclusion of this is not just the extent to which the economy is increasingly based on insecure jobs where employees are dispensable, but that nearly a million workers are unaware that they are employed on such precarious terms.
Zero-hours contracts seem to work only for a small proportion of those who are employed on them, mostly students who appreciate the ability to fit work around their studies. A majority of zero-hours workers want to work more, while, in Greater London, three-quarters are paid less than the London Living Wage. By contrast, businesses can utilise zero-hours contracts to create an ultra-flexible workforce to drive their wage costs down to an absolute minimum without having to worry about such ‘perks’ as the right not to be unfairly dismissed or sick pay.
This is the great clash of interests that now exists in zero-Hours Britain, where the ever growing use of zero-hours contracts has shifted the risk of employment onto workers without any corresponding reward for taking on that risk or the problems that may be caused by working at short notice. Imagine trying to organise childcare when you are on low pay and have only an hour’s notice.
But while zero-hours have eroded individual rights, they also represent a threat to economic development. In zero-hours Britain, productivity is lower because workers are often explicitly or implicitly prevented from accepting hours with other employers (even if there are no hours available with their primary employer), and where employers do not invest in training and developing the workforce.
In London, the mayor has shown little interest in addressing or even understanding this phenomenon. Despite his responsibility for economic development, the mayor has consistently refused to commission research into the use of zero-hours contracts in London.
Just like his support for welfare cuts that disproportionately affect London, or his nonchalance towards falling wages in the capital, Boris has consistently shown himself to be indifferent to problems faced by people on low and insecure incomes.
As the mayor who once proclaimed that the greatest thing about London is its ’72 billionaires’, perhaps this indifference should not be so surprising.
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Fiona Twycross is a member of the London assembly. She tweets @fionatwycross
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