Zero hours
For the last 30 years I have worked as a consultant, on contracts that are usually loosely defined but that place me as my own employer - self-employed.
There is one exception to this, because having been instrumental in establishing an MSc in Embedded Systems at the University of Kingston, London, eight years ago I still teach its module on DSP Processors - which usually involves about eight full days of teaching. I used to be a Guest Lecturer but the university requires that to teach more than 5 days I must be an Hourly Paid Lecturer (HPL). This has two consequences: first that I became an employee of the university - which, in the absence of my having any other employer, thus becomes my 'employer' despite the fact that almost none of my work is for them; second that my rate of pay fell by almost a half. I don't actually mind the fall in pay because I like teaching the students and do it more for that enjoyment than for the money, and because the Guest Lecturer rate was already so low in relation top my normal earnings that halving it was insignificant. (I am on the lowest rung of the academic pay scale, at the same level as a newly qualified PhD, because I have never worked in the academic sector.)
My teaching at the university is on a 'zero hours contract' - I am an employee but with no commitment on me to work , nor on the university to offer, any set number of hours. Zero hours contracts are a feature of UK workplaces - they are banned or discouraged in some other countries. They are controversial because they can be exploited to deny employees' rights.
I have found it a curiosity that my 'employer' is an institution for which I do little work, and I have also seen my own status on other contracts as being 'zero hours'. I learned a bit about zero hours contracts by reading my own (always good advice to read your wok contract...), and by being briefly involved with a union group set up to support university lecturers on such contracts.
Recently Owen Smith MP, a candidate for leader of the British Labour Party, set out a manifesto that included 'banning' zero hours contracts. I took exception to this because I - in common, according to studies, with about 60% of people on such contracts - value the flexibility to me of not committing to a set number of working hours.
Prompted to check my facts, I found that actually my own normal work is not at all 'zero hours' - because the contracts, if they exist, do not confer employee's rights on me. For instance, the university allows me holiday pay (not much, on 8 days' work a year..) and other rights that I do not expect from my other clients. So my actual status - apart from the university teaching - is 'self-employed'. I think my self-employed work for diverse clients counts as 'casual work'. I have no idea how my status as an employee of the university accords with my being self-employed, and am not yet motivated to find out. But I am interested to see that I conflated 'zero hours' with 'no commitment to work' - an easy mistake, I suppose, due to the implication that the hours (or lack thereof..) define the contract. Actually a 'zero hours' contract confers more protection and employee rights than does casual work - most of the entitlements of a 'regular' employee in fact. It also sets up a contractual relationship so that one does not have to be established each time work is done - which is an administrative convenience.
So are 'zero hours' contracts unacceptable altogether, as Owen Smith suggests?
I think the answer is no - but their exploitation is. The contract itself seems to exist precisely to confer employee rights, but some employers distort this to deny them. For example I read of cases where the employer would 'switch off' the hours when there was no work to be done but require the employee still to be at the workplace; and where the contract denied the employee the right to take other work even if the employer had none to offer. Both these cases, and many others, have been tested in law and found illegal. The contract has to be fair and balanced, and its terms are interpreted to reflect the balance of power in the bargaining environment - for example a lone employee facing a corporate employer may have restrictive terms in their contract that would have been negotiated away by an informed negotiator (like a union..), but those terms do not hold if the balance of power in negotiation lay with the employer. So the exploitation is tried, but found wanting at law.
The zero hours contract itself is popular with some of us precisely because of the lack of commitment on our side.
There is one exception to this, because having been instrumental in establishing an MSc in Embedded Systems at the University of Kingston, London, eight years ago I still teach its module on DSP Processors - which usually involves about eight full days of teaching. I used to be a Guest Lecturer but the university requires that to teach more than 5 days I must be an Hourly Paid Lecturer (HPL). This has two consequences: first that I became an employee of the university - which, in the absence of my having any other employer, thus becomes my 'employer' despite the fact that almost none of my work is for them; second that my rate of pay fell by almost a half. I don't actually mind the fall in pay because I like teaching the students and do it more for that enjoyment than for the money, and because the Guest Lecturer rate was already so low in relation top my normal earnings that halving it was insignificant. (I am on the lowest rung of the academic pay scale, at the same level as a newly qualified PhD, because I have never worked in the academic sector.)
My teaching at the university is on a 'zero hours contract' - I am an employee but with no commitment on me to work , nor on the university to offer, any set number of hours. Zero hours contracts are a feature of UK workplaces - they are banned or discouraged in some other countries. They are controversial because they can be exploited to deny employees' rights.
I have found it a curiosity that my 'employer' is an institution for which I do little work, and I have also seen my own status on other contracts as being 'zero hours'. I learned a bit about zero hours contracts by reading my own (always good advice to read your wok contract...), and by being briefly involved with a union group set up to support university lecturers on such contracts.
Recently Owen Smith MP, a candidate for leader of the British Labour Party, set out a manifesto that included 'banning' zero hours contracts. I took exception to this because I - in common, according to studies, with about 60% of people on such contracts - value the flexibility to me of not committing to a set number of working hours.
Prompted to check my facts, I found that actually my own normal work is not at all 'zero hours' - because the contracts, if they exist, do not confer employee's rights on me. For instance, the university allows me holiday pay (not much, on 8 days' work a year..) and other rights that I do not expect from my other clients. So my actual status - apart from the university teaching - is 'self-employed'. I think my self-employed work for diverse clients counts as 'casual work'. I have no idea how my status as an employee of the university accords with my being self-employed, and am not yet motivated to find out. But I am interested to see that I conflated 'zero hours' with 'no commitment to work' - an easy mistake, I suppose, due to the implication that the hours (or lack thereof..) define the contract. Actually a 'zero hours' contract confers more protection and employee rights than does casual work - most of the entitlements of a 'regular' employee in fact. It also sets up a contractual relationship so that one does not have to be established each time work is done - which is an administrative convenience.
So are 'zero hours' contracts unacceptable altogether, as Owen Smith suggests?
I think the answer is no - but their exploitation is. The contract itself seems to exist precisely to confer employee rights, but some employers distort this to deny them. For example I read of cases where the employer would 'switch off' the hours when there was no work to be done but require the employee still to be at the workplace; and where the contract denied the employee the right to take other work even if the employer had none to offer. Both these cases, and many others, have been tested in law and found illegal. The contract has to be fair and balanced, and its terms are interpreted to reflect the balance of power in the bargaining environment - for example a lone employee facing a corporate employer may have restrictive terms in their contract that would have been negotiated away by an informed negotiator (like a union..), but those terms do not hold if the balance of power in negotiation lay with the employer. So the exploitation is tried, but found wanting at law.
The zero hours contract itself is popular with some of us precisely because of the lack of commitment on our side.
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