Sports Direct 90% of staff on 0 hour contracts

[hellfleet]

The thing I don't understand is why it has to be zero hours.

 

The choice isn't just full time or zero hours. Why not have employees on part time contracts and give them the option to take on extra hours when they are available. You could still have a bank of employees with plenty of cover for busy times while still guaranteeing some income.

[Hillpig]

I've worked loads of zero hour contracts with agencies in between permanent jobs, in fact some led to permanent jobs; most were big orders with companies that permanent staff couldn't cover. Some mind numbingly boring jobs too. I just got on with it.

 

I asked and got an answer. I remember one on Attercliffe in a factory, and they said almost certainly 2 weeks, but we hope to get a few more orders and it might be a month. Simple.

 

-

 

The programme only interviewed a few people who were most likely not taken on because they were crap at their jobs. Or too lazy.

 

As I always say in here - If you don't like, don't buy. If no one buys from Amazon they won't exist, let alone take on people with any kind of contracts.

 

The people in the town [on the programme] say that the community lost their mine and the jobs with it, and thought this [warehouse] would be a good thing. And yet no one wants to work for them [so they say] so they are recruiting from further away. Benefits too good perhaps? Or perhaps we should open a new pit and see if they like their toilet breaks half a mile into the earth, and come back up with emphysema for good measure.

 

You make some excellent points there. If I had the choice of looking for a job in the steelworks or the pits years ago or working in a warehouse or a call centre today, give me today any day of the week.

[Staunton]

Yes that is exactly right.

 

---------- Post added 02-08-2013 at 10:58 ----------

 

 

Quite right too.

 

When you say 'that is right', are you expressing an opinion that unemployed people should be prepared to accept a zero hour contract and to lose their benefits if they refuse?

[angos]

The thing I don't understand is why it has to be zero hours.

 

The choice isn't just full time or zero hours. Why not have employees on part time contracts and give them the option to take on extra hours when they are available. You could still have a bank of employees with plenty of cover for busy times while still guaranteeing some income.

 

This is how many companies solve their staffing problems, they usually employ their staff on 16 hours contracts which allowes the staff to claim tax credits and gives the company a pool of workers that can do extra hours if needed.

[Mister M]

You make some excellent points there. If I had the choice of looking for a job in the steelworks or the pits years ago or working in a warehouse or a call centre today, give me today any day of the week.

 

Is that why you're a security guard, Xenia?

[*_ash_*]

But surely this is like saying 'I don't mind if I am being exploited by Amazon'?

 

You can say anything to twist into what ever way you want to think.

 

Did I think I was being exploited doing 0hour contracts? No. It was work.

 

I worked for YW, BT and BG all on similar contracts, YW lasted for about 5 years. I work hard so they kept me ongoing. BT lasted 2 years until it closed, and BG also closed, but they offered me a permanent job in Leeds, because I was good at the job (which I initially took).

 

And if we bear in mind that Amazon engages in other negative practices such as aggressive tax avoidance as a matter of routine

 

Well, they can choose to not work there, or shop there then. Not make a short film moaning about no jobs in the area due to mine closure, then moaning when there ARE jobs because they don't want to do them.

 

If I was an employer looking at CVs, and saw someone out of work for years when there was work available, and someone else, who DID go and work, be it on 0hour contract or not, I know which way my decision would sway, if they both appeared to be able to do the job I was offering.

 

, and use their market power to dictate terms to their suppliers, and that Amazon is moving slowly towards monopoly status, could it become necessary that we as a society decide that companies that operate in such a manner should be forced by legislative means to behave in a more responsible manner?

 

Do you mean we as a society as in the general public, or we as in the government?

 

I am not confident that consumer boycots will ever be powerful enough to hold such monoliths to account.

 

You are right here. And I think the reason is because despite the information that IS there, and well known by everyone how this company operates, people still choose to shop there. Probably because they supply a service that people want.

 

You CAN choose to go to town and buy books/CDs etc., I choose not. I don't like town, and I can buy things cheaper online and delivered to me. Granted, I'm not the average person, most people seem to like browsing/shopping, I just don't.

 

You make some excellent points there. If I had the choice of looking for a job in the steelworks or the pits years ago or working in a warehouse or a call centre today, give me today any day of the week.

 

If the money is similar, then it's a no brainer.

 

Is that why you're a security guard, Xenia?

 

Is that to be insulting?

[Hillpig]

When you say 'that is right', are you expressing an opinion that unemployed people should be prepared to accept a zero hour contract and to lose their benefits if they refuse?

 

Yes I am. Why should the taxpayer keep them?

 

---------- Post added 02-08-2013 at 16:33 ----------

 

Work, any work does two things, you get paid, you are not a burden on the state or anyone else. Also you get a CV. Which helps when the job you REALLY want comes along.

 

---------- Post added 02-08-2013 at 16:42 ----------

 

What really saddens me about this is that we seem to be going back to the employment conditions which caused the Great London Dock Strike of 1889.

 

A desciption of the 'Call On' system at ports all over the UK:

 

Demand for men varied from day to day because there was very little advance notice that a ship was arriving. The dock companies only took on labourers when trade picked up and they needed them.

 

Most workers in the docks were casual labourers taken on for the day. Sometimes they would be taken on only for a few hours. Twice a day there was a 'call-on' at each of the docks when labour was hired for short periods.

 

Only the lucky few would be selected, the rest would be sent home without payment. The employers wanted to have a large number of men available for work but they did not want to pay them when there was no work.

(libcom.org)

 

It was a tough life, it was over a century ago, and those practices were not really ended until the 1960s. Shortly afterwards the dockers priced themselves out of work, we have lost ship building, steel, coal and numerous other industries, why, because pay and conditions were ridiculously generous.

 

Those seeking utopia are deluded, things are going to get tougher for the working man and woman. The words of Lenin will soon be repeated, "those who will not work, shall not eat." Many will be glad of a 0 hours contract then.

 

We have to be realistic, we are competing in a world economy if Brits do not take the jobs, others will.

 

---------- Post added 02-08-2013 at 16:44 ----------

 

You can say anything to twist into what ever way you want to think.

 

Did I think I was being exploited doing 0hour contracts? No. It was work.

 

I worked for YW, BT and BG all on similar contracts, YW lasted for about 5 years. I work hard so they kept me ongoing. BT lasted 2 years until it closed, and BG also closed, but they offered me a permanent job in Leeds, because I was good at the job (which I initially took).

 

 

 

Well, they can choose to not work there, or shop there then. Not make a short film moaning about no jobs in the area due to mine closure, then moaning when there ARE jobs because they don't want to do them.

 

If I was an employer looking at CVs, and saw someone out of work for years when there was work available, and someone else, who DID go and work, be it on 0hour contract or not, I know which way my decision would sway, if they both appeared to be able to do the job I was offering.

 

 

 

Do you mean we as a society as in the general public, or we as in the government?

 

 

 

You are right here. And I think the reason is because despite the information that IS there, and well known by everyone how this company operates, people still choose to shop there. Probably because they supply a service that people want.

 

You CAN choose to go to town and buy books/CDs etc., I choose not. I don't like town, and I can buy things cheaper online and delivered to me. Granted, I'm not the average person, most people seem to like browsing/shopping, I just don't.

 

 

 

If the money is similar, then it's a no brainer.

 

 

 

Is that to be insulting?

 

 

Well said, and good luck in your career.

[Staunton]

Yes I am. Why should the taxpayer keep them?

 

A zero hour contract seems to me to place a number of constraints upon an employee whilst simultaneously allowing the employer a remarkable freedom from obligations to that same employee – to the extent that they may decide that in a given week there is no work available and therefore no income due to the individual so contracted.

 

It appears to me that you are simultaneously endorsing the government's rhetoric that the unemployed are shirkers and scroungers and the government policy that people who refuse to take up the offer of employment should be penalised by withdrawal of their benefits, even if that employment does not come with any guarantee of work or income.

 

How might a person survive without any income if their zero hour contractor does not provide any work in a given period of, for example, one week, or two weeks?

[Anna B]

Apparently Amazon also make staff wear tracking tags so that their bosses can check up on them. If staff are found to breach any of the company rules, such as talking to colleagues, they can be dismissed on a '3 strikes and you're out basis.'

 

Why don't they just go the whole hog and weld a metal collar round their necks....?

[I1L2T3]

I don't think you really understand the concept of zero hour contracts do you? Rarely are they zero hour or even 3 or 4 hours it just means the employer has the flexibility in quiet times or seasons but best of all it's a great way to performance manage out lazy staff so the ones that do the work get the hours the ones that slack and don't make me any money leave anyway as they don't get the hours !

 

I totally understand the concept.