Employee consultation and support can, in our view, make a huge difference to success when a company in difficulties is being restructured.
But it has emerged that as many as 90% of Sports Direct employees are employed on part-time, Zero hours contracts, and therefore are unlikely to be eligible for the company’s recently-announced bonus payouts. It has been reported that only full-time employees are eligible for the bonus.
Given that these contracts are now used for about 1 million UK employees we should question them.
The advantages to the employer are obvious in that they only pay for workers’ time as and when needed and there are reduced, or even no, entitlements to sickness and holiday pay, thus enabling a company to keep its overheads under control.
Despite their flexibility, which may be appropriate for a very few employees, the contracts offer few guarantees or certainties and yet could result in considerable hardship for employees due to them being expected to be available at short notice without guarantee that they will earn enough to provide a living wage.
At the same time employees on Zero Hours contracts are viewed as being in employment and therefore not eligible for any state help in weeks when they have had no work or pay. Nor can a worker on such a contract take on any other work to supplement their income if they are required to be available at short notice.
We believe they could be abused by employers and support Business Secretary Vince Cable’s initiative for a review of Zero Hours contracts and how they are being used.
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