Zero Hours Contracts Bill

Lord Cryer Excerpts

Friday 21st November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns]

My hon. Friend’s example exemplifies the exploitative practices and abuse by some employers. For Government Members to deny that this is happening is unbelievable.

These are employment practices from another era, which is where they should remain. Zero-hours contracts are a new manifestation of the casualisation of the labour market, a race to the bottom in wages and terms and conditions, and a return to the bad old days of workers queuing at the factory gates, the shipyard or the pit and hoping to be picked to be employed for the day.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

The growth of zero-hours contracts, together with other practices such as the appearance of payroll companies and umbrella companies, and the growth of bogus self-employment, means that in certain sectors we are seeing the virtual abolition of permanent and full-time work.

[Ian Mearns]

I could not agree more. As was pointed out earlier, it is about sloppy planning on the part of employers. If they looked at the way they employ people, they could rationalise the way in which their production and output work, and it would be better for the company if they did so.

Dockers—I meet old dockers, and sons and daughters of dockers—remember queuing for work every day, and being told to “sling their hook” when there was none. When sufficient men had been selected for work on a particular day, the rest were told to go home. The same practice has acquired a modern veneer. Rather than queuing at their place of work, people simply receive a text a couple of hours before a shift starts saying, “No work today.” This creates a desperate and easily exploitable work force.

I am sure every Member is aware of the horror stories we have heard concerning adult social care, where 307,000 workers are employed on zero-hours contracts. Employers frequently use such contracts to circumvent their obligation to pay the national minimum wage.