Well I can’t believe my eyes on this one: it could be that soon zero hour contracts will no longer be exclusive, making them open to contractors!
In fact, Vince Cable the business secretary himself has been the one to submit the proposal. Amazingly the Government is actually taking steps to support the self-employed such as freelancers and umbrella company contractors!
Zero hour contracts aren’t exactly the best types of contracts around, as they both stop an employee from pursuing other jobs whilst under contract as well as not guaranteeing any work. However, they’re particularly popular with British firms at the moment – and that means either taking it or leaving it if you want a chance at employment.
Economically speaking, zero hour contracts benefit firms that fear they don’t have enough business coming in to justify keeping a large pool of staff on the job. It’s a cost controlling measure that works well considering that you have a fully-trained workforce available at a moment’s notice to begin work again once the economy improves, but it’s more or less rubbish for anyone trying to earn a living under a zero hour contract. Sure, it’s fantastic for a pensioner or a student looking to put a few extra pounds in their pocket from time to time, but you can’t be expected to make monthly mortgage repayments if you’re out of work for weeks at a time, now can you?
However, stripping the ability of zero hour contracts to be exclusive means that this opens the door for freelancers to pursue other job opportunities. This is incredibly important if you’ve got no work coming in from your contract – and Vince Cable agrees.
So it’s not exactly an outright ban on zero hour contracts, which in my opinion wouldn’t have been terrible either despite the business secretary’s insistence that they have a role in the current economy, but this exclusivity clause absolutely must go. It’s indeed a bit of an imperfect solution but it makes a rather uncomfortable situation much more palatable if you’re no longer bound by contract to avoid paying work from a competitor.
At any rate, I can only hope that this is the first step in regulating zero hour contracts into submission. I’d love to see them go completely, but the business-centric Government is unlikely to be keen to do so, despite the damage they can cause to regular Brits.
