Ever since industrialisation drew large numbers of people to the cities signs like this one have been seen on the walls and gates of factories, docks and here, a mine. Workers would get up before dawn and queue at the gates of places that may have work, if they were quick and lucky there was work for them, otherwise they were turned away when the men had been hired for the day. So there would be a rush to another place that may have work, and another. Till it was too late and the men would find no work that day. These events were a hallmark of the working class living in insecurity and poverty. Something from the history books, something that a civilised 21st century nation, the sixth richest in the world, would never see. IDS has been demonstrating his complete and utter lack of anything human recently, every time the man opens his mouth he demonstrates that not only is he an utterly cruel and uncaring waste of human skin but that he is a Tories Tory. A man for whom no oppression, no cruelty and no inhumanity is too much. Perhaps he is one of those Lizard overlords that are supposed to run the US. He recently came up with a new low even for him. Watch THIS Zero hours contracts, a name given to how well over a million people who work in jobs have no fixed or guaranteed hours, jobs where they are told if they are wanted the next day or next week often late in the afternoon. Jobs that create uncertainty and stress with those trapped in them completely denied any control over their own lives. They cannot schedule their social or work activities or even have any idea how much or how little money they will have from week to week. The ONS has a much higher number because it looks at people who are employed part time or full time in a job without fixed hours and with no minimum hours, they report 1,400,000 in such contracts who are doing some work and another 1,300,000 in such contracts who did no work during the period covered which was first quarter 2014. This is the quote taken from the ONS report 2014. There doesn't seem to be anything more recent, funny that, what with an election and all. There is no legal definition of “zero-hours contracts” and there are a number of different definitions and perceptions relating to this concept. The common element to most of the definitions relates to the lack of a guaranteed minimum number of hours of work. This is the definition used by the ONS in its survey of businesses. This includes, but is not exclusively, “zero-hours contracts” and will include some other contract types that do not guarantee a minimum number of hours. However, this will give different results to the LFS measure of people in employment, as the perceptions of employees and employers will differ. The provisional ONS estimate from businesses indicates that for January to February 2014, there were 1.4 million employee contracts that do not guarantee a minimum number of hours, that provided work in the reference period of the fortnight beginning 20 January 2014. This is higher than the LFS estimate of 583,000 for the number of people in whose primary employment is on a “zero-hours contracts” for October to December 2013. The difference between the two estimates will partly be due to employees being able to have more than one contract (including people who supplement their primary employment with a NGHC), employers being more aware of the contractual arrangements of their employees as well as the differing perceptions of the two groups. Many of those in the second number are thought to be agency workers, those with multiple jobs or people who registered on such a contract and found other work. The ONS does not have an estimate for how many of the one point three million should be added to the one point four million but given reports about 1,800,000 on zero hours contracts at the beginning of 2015 it would seem to be a lot. Zero hours contracts are those where the employer allocates work to the employee when it is needed, from the company point of view it means not having staff around during periods of quiet. It is entirely possible to be in such a contract with a good and caring employer who works to ensure that its staff have work and income. All too many companies simply use them to exploit the work force and to maximise their own profits without regard to the human cost suffered by the employees yet our Minister for the Department of Workless Persecution thinks that people who work zero hours contracts are more satisfied with their work / life balance. Some contracts lock the people into a single company, others allow them to work elsewhere but with the complete uncertainty of not know if or when you will next work planning a part time job around zero hours contracts is all but impossible. They are a good idea that has been taken and twisted to serve the employer and the company and to oppress the worker and the employee. With the election coming up the various parties have spoken out. Banning them, changing them so they become proper jobs after 12 weeks (hence ensuring a mass of eleven week contracts then you get dumped and someone else will be hired) or left as they are. Then we have IDS demonstrating that whatever planet he lives in, it isn’t this one. He has now said that Zero Hours Contracts just need a rebrand. They will be fine if they are given a marketing friendly name, Flexible Hours Contracts. Because a bit of PR and a name change will make everything better. Arbeit macht fre Marketing, give it a new image, change the logo, maybe have some puppies in the adverts. Just sweep the problem under the carper, get it out of peoples view. Zero Hours Contracts is such an emotive name so change it to stop all those annoying critics complaining. That's IDS for once again showing us just how Little you care about the people it is your responsibility to be looking after. The Department for Workless Persecution, the Ideal place for IDS. |
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