Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/06/david-cameron-britain-dockers-line-up-back


Zero-hours contracts: in Cameron's Britain, the dockers' line-up is back

Driven by privatisation and corporate muscle, zero-hours casualisation is disastrous for workers, jobs and real recovery


Seumas Milne

The Guardian, Tuesday 6 August 2013 22.15 BST




The hallmarks of David Cameron's Britain are becoming clearer: payday loans, food banks, the bedroom tax, G4S and now zero-hours contracts. Until this week, it was often claimed that zero-hours jobs – the ultimate "flexible labour market" fix where employees are tied to a company with no guarantee of work – accounted for only a tiny fraction of the workforce.

Now we know that there are about a million of them – and their numbers are escalating. For most, this is 21st-century serfdom: concentrated in low-paid sectors, delivering one-sided flexibility to the employer and insecurity to the worker, with no requirement for holiday, sick or redundancy pay, and imposing wild fluctuations in hours on an often intimidated workforce.

For a minority, they can offer genuine flexible work and even the option of turning jobs down without paying a penalty (though other forms of casual or freelance work are likely to be more attractive). For the most part, however, this is a modern version of the dockers' line-up: on-call casual contracts where employees can be barred for working for another employer and still receive no pay. It's scarcely surprising zero-hours workers complain of being "bullied" and "terrified".

Nor is this Victorian-style scheme mainly confined to small firms or seasonal work. This is about household names: McDonald's, Boots, Amazon, Abercrombie & Fitch, Cineworld, the Tate galleries and Buckingham Palace. All rely on zero-hours contracts. In the case of Sports Direct, they're used to enforce a two-tier workforce: 90% of its 23,000 workers are on zero-hours deals, while the rest are full-time employees on bonuses of up to £100,000.

Now the zero-hours culture is spreading rapidly throughout the public and voluntary sectors. There are already up to 100,000 workers on zero-hours contracts in the health service. And the large majority of home care workers are forced to operate under these standby contracts – which have also colonised colleges and universities, reducing continuity of support for students and the vulnerable into the bargain.

But zero hours are only one part of a far wider casualisation process that has accelerated since the crash of 2008 and the arrival of the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition. Agency working, temporary work and enforced part-time working have all mushroomed: nearly half the jobs created since 2008 have been temporary, as half a million permanent jobs have been lost.

So while ministers and their supporters claim that labour flexibility has kept unemployment at a mere 2.5 million, or about 8% of the workforce, underemployment – including those on part-time or casual contracts who want to work more hours – is 10%.

It's not as if this embrace of zero-hours contracts and other forms of casualisation has simply happened spontaneously, either. The sharp intensification of privatisation or "opening up" of public services by the coalition has fuelled the process, as local authorities respond to cuts in funding by driving through ever tighter tenders on outsourced contracts.

Councils now commission home care, for instance, from a large number of contractors without guaranteed hours – who can bid online for a contract to provide care even for one elderly person. That is then translated into zero-hours contracts for hundreds of thousands of care workers.

So privatisation of public services, which has generated one scandalous failure and fraud after another and is opposed by a large majority of the public (demonstrated once again by polling for the new "We Own It" campaign) is also driving the race to the bottom in pay and conditions for Britain's workers.

Far from boosting economic recovery or employment, that's one of the factors behind the longest fall in real wages since the 1870s, as four out of five new jobs since 2008 have been created in low-wage sectors, by the TUC's reckoning. The result is a deadweight drag on demand, falling productivity and a spiral of under-investment.

The idea that an even more insecure jobs market will turn that round, and slash unemployment and underemployment, clearly doesn't stack up. The last time Britain had anything close to full employment, in the 1960s and 70s, it also had far more regulated and secure employment, as do Europe's more successful economies today.

But that is of course a long way from the Tory vision of the workplace, made clear by the party's chairman Grant Shapps last week when he complained about firms' need to be "disingenuous" about sacking people. And in case there were any doubt about who the coalition parties want to have the whip hand at work, last Monday the government introduced a prohibitive £1,200 fee for anyone going to an employment tribunal to protect their legal rights – the latest in a string of retrograde steps to load the dice still further against employees.

That's the spirit of zero-hours contracts: unfettered flexibility for capital, powerless prostration for the workforce. Under public pressure, the business secretary, Vince Cable, has now suggested "moving forward with recommendations to consult" about outlawing the most extreme zero-hours abuses; so far, Labour's frontbench hasn't gone much further.

If the balance of workplace power is even going to begin to be righted, these contracts will have to be scrapped – and regulation imposed on other schemes or bogus self-employment arrangements that might be used to replace them. That will also require stronger unions, of course – and a Labour leadership that is prepared to stand up to corporate interests.

Which will take a political and industrial fight. As elsewhere, the response of this government and its business allies to the crisis unleashed in 2008 has been to try to restore profitability at the expense of the living standards of the majority – instead of using the public sector to drive up investment and growth directly. Reducing workers' bargaining power is part of that.

What's clear is that the model of capitalism that crashed and burned five years ago – and they are now trying to resurrect – is unable to deliver secure jobs and full employment, or anything like it. If neoliberalism were just a theory of economic management, it would have been discredited by its failure. What's going on now is a reminder that it's also a system of social power.

one would not expect the gurniad to take other than the above stance, just as no doubt it supported that bunch of ehrc do-gooders who complained about ethnic minorities being targetted as potential illegals

my own view on these "zero hour contracts" is that they are not all bad, nothwithstanding that most would rather have defined hours etc etc ..... however, i also have sympathy for those companies who feel that this is the only way they can stay viable
so on balance, better a crummy job than no job

on the other side, as i mentioned before, are the likes of courier drivers whose employers (all as far as i can determine) insist that their drivers are self-employed ..... no, the drivers aren't paid cash, but of course they are only employed "as needed" and benefit from none of the statutory perks and safety nets afforded even to those on "zero hour contract"

Zero hours contracts are not bad per se. They are nothing new and it equates to casual workers. The ones that are potentially a problem are the exclusive zero hour contracts where an employee may not work for anyone else for the duration of the contract. It is this that Vince Cable is going after. It is impossible to stop zero hours contracts as some jobs only exist on that basis.

If they want zero hour workers, they should call them self employed, cos that's what they are.

Oh, and pay the going rate....£7 quid an hour wont cover it.

They are not self employed. They wouldn't be allowed to be self employed under tax rules. If a worker works for just one employer irrespective of any exclusivity, then tax has to be deducted at source as under PAYE. They are just employed with no fixed hours. That's a situation that has always existed. The only reason that this has become a story is because the numbers are increasing. It is market forces. There is a surplus in the workforce so it is a buyers' market. In times of fuller employment, employers would want everyone to work full time and it would be closer to a sellers' market. It is very dangerous to interfere with this process by legislation.

Max - self-employed can be a pain as the person then has to keep proper records and make tax returns etc etc ...... also, as already pointed out, they do not get the perks of being in the system - e.g. no holiday pay; no sick pay; no unemployment benefit and so on and so on

Sports Direct use zero hours staff. These staff could not be self employed due to tax rules. To be self employed you have to demonstrate tat you are running a business with multiple customers.

A couple of links that may be of interest.



http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/16/03/2010/54858/flexible-working-push-by-jobcentres-welcomed-by-employers.htm

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/feb/03/lord-freud-recession-unemployment-conservatives

It is all part of what is known as 'supply side policies'.

vote UKIP EVER one I talk to says yes . I MAY EVEN PUT UP SO MANY HAVE TOLD ME TOO and some are labour voters most are torys

I WILL post a e mail on hear soon from the chairman of the tory party
to myself

Every poll shows UKIP declining in popularity.

Hays - you are right .... is suspect the courier companies say they are merely agents for their clients who want stuff delivered - along those lines anyway ..... i recollect that that was the effective defense put up by an escort agency perhaps a year ago

it all depends who you speak to if I go in the local miners club it will be labour if I go to west minster it will be tory
if you go to nutters club it will be lib

the list of LIB MPs over the last 20 years who have broken the law is truly amazing
from theft to liars and fiddles and the tory party is not far behind .

We are so lucky to have those honest, upstanding Labour MP's to fall back on.
2517

General Election 2015: Are The Tories 'Gliding To Victory'?

The Tories are back in business, Ed Miliband's in crisis, and David Cameron is striding purposefully towards a majority in the 2015 General Election.

That's what the papers say, with Labour's trade union spats, an improving economy, and Abu Qatada's deportation all cited in evidence.

On Tuesday, the Daily Telegraph even reported senior Tories' confidence that they were on a 'glide path' to victory.

And Ladbrokes said 70% of election bets in the past fortnight had been for the Conservatives.

only because lab are 1.5

A recent article in the Kentucky Post reported that a woman, one Anne Maynard, has sued St Luke’s Hospital, saying that after her husband was treated there recently, he had lost all interest in sex.
A hospital spokesman replied, "Mr Maynard was actually admitted in Ophthalmology - all we did was correct his eyesight."

A luxury toilet controlled by a smartphone app is vulnerable to attack, according to security experts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23575249

Whatever next... PMSL

Probably the risk of attack is 100% more for women as compared to men!