Politics

'One-nation' Boris Johnson must stand up for workers on zero-hour contracts


It’s the mid-point of January and for hundreds of thousands of zero-hour workers the phone has stopped ringing.

Staff forced to work all through family Christmas, over New Year and through the January sales are now getting texts to say they aren’t needed.

This comes just at one of the most unforgiving times of the year, when there are Christmas credit card bills to pay off.

In London, the Trades Union Congress is staging a summit on this scourge of modern capitalism.

Despite claims that zero-hours is on the wane, the number of people on these contracts actually rose by 15% last year, to close to a million people.

As many people at the summit point out, zero hours is inextricably linked to the brutalisation of the ­benefits system. People who refuse a zero-hour job can lose their benefits and face sanctions.

Campaigners protesting against Sports Direct’s use of zero hours contracts

Among the most impassioned speakers is Julian Richer. He’s not a trade unionist or a zero-hour worker, but boss of hi-fi chain Richer Sounds.

An entrepreneur who’s gone through a Damascene conversion from Tory donor with a private jet, to ethical businessman and charity donor.

“How can people be working but not earn enough money for food and rent?” he asks.

“Where are they supposed to live when landlords won’t accept people on zero hours? What about working mums who have paid childcare but get no hours? Or the women who get sexually harassed when they ask for more hours?

“It’s like the bad old days of the dockers on the quayside not knowing if they would get work.”

After writing a book, The Ethical Capitalist, last year, Richer gifted 60% of his shares to his workforce and handed out £3.5million in bonuses.

Now he’s working with the TUC and others to stamp out exploitative practices. “Without unions, we’d still be putting children up chimneys,” he says.

Other campaigners speak about the deep link to sexual harassment and exploitation – telling stories of female workers being asked “What are you going to do for me?” by bosses with the power to extend their hours.

Julian Richer, founder of Richer Sounds

Replacing the dark satanic mills of the past, zero-hours jobs are how ­capitalism’s new Victorians keep scamming the system.

As the Scottish TUC’s Better Than Zero campaign says – it’s not just  zero hours, it’s zero rights and zero respect. 

And everyone in the room knows that now Boris Johnson is in Number 10, there is almost zero chance of his government doing anything about it, hence trade unions stepping up the fight.

Thompsons Solicitors meanwhile intends to launch a challenge through the courts.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady says: “We can’t wait for the government to find its conscience. We can’t wait for Amazon or McDonald’s to find theirs.

“We need to use the law as part of our organising strategy. People are not units of labour, but human beings.”

The national president of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union, Ian Hodson, dates the union’s fightback to 2013, at Hovis.

“They tried introducing zero-hour contracts, but workers took action and they were successful,” he says.

“Zero-hour contracts are not a modern phenomenon – McDonald’s invented them in 1974.”

But he adds, “there are decent employers out there”.

Greggs does not use zero-hour contracts

Hodson cites Greggs, which doesn’t use zero hours and offers regular shifts, feeds 36,000 schoolchildren a free breakfast every school day, and shares 10% of profits with employees.

PCS union national officer for ­Scotland and Ireland Lynne Henderson describes their use in other fields. “Our members are at the heart of British institutions,” she says. “ACAS uses zero-hour workers.

The Ministry of Justice. The British Museum, the South Bank Centre.”

Brian Simpson from Unite the Union describes fighting and winning campaigns “from wage theft in Dundee to sexual harassment in ­Aberdeen. Workers in £300-a-night hotels who won’t earn that in a month”.

In hospitality, he says, “70% earn below the living wage, and 92% of women have experienced sexual harassment”.

Sherene Nelson-Cruddas, from the Better than Zero Campaign, says workers can’t afford to get home after late shifts, sometimes spending half their wages on a cab. “They don’t know their hours so they can’t plan for their second job,” she says.

Richer explains he is setting up the Good Business Charter, with the TUC and CBI as trustees. “I’ve found, if I treat people better, I get a better output from them,” he says.

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“My business is flourishing, and I sleep better at night. My competitors are having a blood bath. We’re having record year on record year. I believe treating my people well is a huge part of that.”

Frances O’Grady ends by saying: “I have a simple challenge to Boris Johnson to do something for the people in his new Tory seats of Burnley, Blyth and Bolsover.

“You say you’re a One Nation Conservative, and you want a People’s Government. Prove it. Prove it by banning zero-hour contracts.”





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