ECCOnoob Posted July 30, 2013 Share Posted July 30, 2013 What absolutely disgraceful "journalism" from the Guardian. What about the NHS / Police forces / DWP / HMRC / British Telecom / Debenhams / Boots / Next / Primark / Cooperative Group / Waitrose / Asda / Morrisons and Tesco... They all have zero hours contracts. Sport Direct is the type of place that will have a monthly staff turnover of hundreds. School kids and uni students drift in and out of roles all the time. Many will be seeking flexible part time hours and no doubt will be very non-commital about those hours. I dont blame them at all for doing zero hours contracts. I am sure it will be just perfect for both business need and employee need. The nievity and faux shock on some of the comments on the article are just laughable. Firstly, half of the people commenting will have never stepped foot in the place. As for the handful that do - they would be fully aware that its a a pile it high and sell it dirt cheap store staffed by fetuses with walkie talkies. What do hell did they expect? Sod the cheapo tat retailers. The real question to be asked here is if all these unions and MPs are so discusted by this - why the hell is half the civil service divisions still using them? Complete hypocracy. Nothing more than using Ashley as a scapegoat. Just like all these "moralistic" prats used Jimmy Carr as a scapegoat for tax avoidance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eli Nich Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 Future? Nobody have seen it unless its a science fiction movie. But again when one door gets closed other gets open. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I1L2T3 Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 What absolutely disgraceful "journalism" from the Guardian. What about the NHS / Police forces / DWP / HMRC / British Telecom / Debenhams / Boots / Next / Primark / Cooperative Group / Waitrose / Asda / Morrisons and Tesco... They all have zero hours contracts. Sport Direct is the type of place that will have a monthly staff turnover of hundreds. School kids and uni students drift in and out of roles all the time. Many will be seeking flexible part time hours and no doubt will be very non-commital about those hours. I dont blame them at all for doing zero hours contracts. I am sure it will be just perfect for both business need and employee need. The nievity and faux shock on some of the comments on the article are just laughable. Firstly, half of the people commenting will have never stepped foot in the place. As for the handful that do - they would be fully aware that its a a pile it high and sell it dirt cheap store staffed by fetuses with walkie talkies. What do hell did they expect? Sod the cheapo tat retailers. The real question to be asked here is if all these unions and MPs are so discusted by this - why the hell is half the civil service divisions still using them? Complete hypocracy. Nothing more than using Ashley as a scapegoat. Just like all these "moralistic" prats used Jimmy Carr as a scapegoat for tax avoidance. I don't think anybody doubts that some businesses need a flexible workforce, and that some workers are happy to work flexibly. As I said above there is a place for this. But come on, can it be really true that a business with a fixed number of locations and fixed operational hours has to have 90% of the workforce on flexible hours? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pidgeon Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 Toys R Us used to do em, they called em Key Time Employees Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fudbeer Posted July 31, 2013 Author Share Posted July 31, 2013 Aren't the permanent employees about to share an average £44k bonus? This was from 2011 but the bulk payment was due this summer. Source Guardian Business 14/7/11 Based on Thursday's share price of 256.5p, Sports Direct's bonus share scheme pot of £88m will pay out shares worth an average of about £44,000 each to 2,200 permanent staff working in its shops, warehouses and the head office. But they will have to wait until the summer of 2013 for the lion's share (about £31,000). Its only the full time staff that get the bonus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shogun Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 I had a delivery to do to their warehouse place in mansfield and everyone one of their staff there were polish or foreign.there were no English speaking people on the loading bay at all, not until I got to the office did I find a person that spoke proper English.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DYKWIA Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 Its only the full time staff that get the bonus. And if it is true that 90% of staff are on zero hours contract, not many people will be getting a sniff of this money. I had a delivery to do to their warehouse place in mansfield and everyone one of their staff there were polish or foreign.there were no English speaking people on the loading bay at all, not until I got to the office did I find a person that spoke proper English.. And your point is............... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shogun Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 And if it is true that 90% of staff are on zero hours contract, not many people will be getting a sniff of this money. And your point is............... can't you work it out for yourself.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellfleet Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 Through my years as a student I've worked zero hour contracts part time for several companies in 3 different areas (leisure, bar work, warehousing). It was just about bearable as a student but I could not imagine trying to live like that as 'a grownup' with a family. The implementation is usually really badly done. For all of the companies I think the policy was to release the work rotas at least a week in advance but most of the time for all companies this got delayed and more often than not we wouldn't know what we were working for the week ahead sometimes until 1 or 2 days before. If we then had something clash with another commitment any attempts to swap shifts around with other staff would be seen as a 'lack of flexibility' and result in being further down the pecking order in terms of the hours. I once got given 1 hour minimum wage work in the middle of a sunday which at the time for a 17 year old was less than 4 quid I think. The bus cost me 1.50 and due to sunday timings meant I actually lost about 4 hours of my day - I had exams to study for at the time as well. Yet if I'd challenge it then you can guarantee I'd have had far less overall work. The other thing that used to happen often was we'd get put down for a multiple hour shift, reorganize our lives around the shift - turn down other jobs etc as at one point I was working in multiple places and after arrival for the shift be sent home after an hour. It is absolutely depressing to have work promised and have it taken away on the day. I did do a bar job at a local pub which was casual hours and part time and they treated me very well so its not all bad! For the record I'm sure Adam Smith on here doesn't screw over and bully his employees - just because he has some zero hours contracts doesn't mean he does. ---------- Post added 31-07-2013 at 11:06 ---------- can't you work it out for yourself.. You're a xenophobe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fudbeer Posted July 31, 2013 Author Share Posted July 31, 2013 Through my years as a student I've worked zero hour contracts part time for several companies in 3 different areas (leisure, bar work, warehousing). It was just about bearable as a student but I could not imagine trying to live like that as 'a grownup' with a family. The implementation is usually really badly done. For all of the companies I think the policy was to release the work rotas at least a week in advance but most of the time for all companies this got delayed and more often than not we wouldn't know what we were working for the week ahead sometimes until 1 or 2 days before. If we then had something clash with another commitment any attempts to swap shifts around with other staff would be seen as a 'lack of flexibility' and result in being further down the pecking order in terms of the hours. I once got given 1 hour minimum wage work in the middle of a sunday which at the time for a 17 year old was less than 4 quid I think. The bus cost me 1.50 and due to sunday timings meant I actually lost about 4 hours of my day - I had exams to study for at the time as well. Yet if I'd challenge it then you can guarantee I'd have had far less overall work. The other thing that used to happen often was we'd get put down for a multiple hour shift, reorganize our lives around the shift - turn down other jobs etc as at one point I was working in multiple places and after arrival for the shift be sent home after an hour. It is absolutely depressing to have work promised and have it taken away on the day. I did do a bar job at a local pub which was casual hours and part time and they treated me very well so its not all bad! For the record I'm sure Adam Smith on here doesn't screw over and bully his employees - just because he has some zero hours contracts doesn't mean he does. ---------- Post added 31-07-2013 at 11:06 ---------- You're a xenophobe? Yes that's exactly how I would imagine it to work having worked in retail most of my life what should happen and what actually happens are often 2 very different things, You often find that the quality of management in retail has fallen in the last few years as the rate of pay has fallen because retailers have downgraded the grades of management instore. Where as before you might have a manager and a couple of deputys who are experienced and well trained nowadays its often team leaders with who only earn a few pence more an hour who effectively run the stores and they are often young an undertrained so you find things like rotas are often poorly done or done late with little thought to what you are asking people to do. Even if staff only had a 6 hour contract at least they had an idea of the minimum they could earn each week, To guarantee them nothing from one week to the next and expecting them to cover for an hour is just abuse of staff imo and as a manager I would never of expected my staff to do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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