UK

‘I don’t get the hours or pay I need’: workers on zero hours contracts speak out

Labour has pledged to end 'exploitative zero hours' contracts, but figures this week show the number of workers on them has increased

UCU university union branch at Sheffield Hallam University fighting against zero hours contracts (Picture: Zero Hours Justice)

By Arthur Townend
Saturday 16 November 2024  

SOCIALIST WORKER Issue

“I’ve been let go with no notice, and I’ve turned up to work only to be sent away. I wouldn’t get paid at all.,” said Tharun, a temporary teaching assistant (TA).

“On a zero hours contract, you have the commitment of a full time job, 8am-4pm, five days a week. But you don’t get the entitlement of a proper contract. It’s horrible practice. There’s no notice.”

The reality of a zero hours contract is the stress of not knowing when or where you’re working, and if you’ll have money to pay the rent. Labour has pledged to end “exploitative zero hour” contracts with the Employment Rights Bill.

But figures this week showed the number of people on them has increased since Labour’s election win. Over one million workers are on zero hour contracts and around 90,000 of those are in education. The total number grew by 10 percent, from 1.03 million to 1.13 million in the last quarter.

“Whenever a school needs a TA, I get called and go in. I go in for up to eight weeks until the school essentially runs out of money—I then get told there no more work for me anymore,” said Sky, a supply TA.

“I don’t get paid unless I’m in a school, and right now I’ve not had work for three weeks.”

Tharun added, “If you’re a single person who needs to earn, it can be so harsh because you’re so dependent on someone else for work. It’s stressful thinking, ‘Will I have work the next day?’ That dependency can be quite painful.”

Sky spoke about the personal pressure a zero hours contract puts on her. “It affects me to know I can suddenly pulled away from work. They can end the contract early—I got given a week’s notice at my last job—and financially that’s a lot of pressure, and it can be really bad for you mentally.

“It’s also stressful having to adjust to a new working environment each time I get a new job.

“As a trans worker, I don’t know what the new school will be like—I just get dropped somewhere and have to fight for myself. At one school, a student was transphobic, so the school just figured it was easier to let me go—why deal with the issue when they know I’m so disposable?”

In education, relying on temporary workers can be harmful for students. “It lets the kids down. It can dysregulate the kids a lot when I have to leave because most of the children I work with have Send (Special educational needs and disabilities),” Sky said.

Sky agreed with Tharun that workers on zero hours contracts don’t get the same conditions as permanent workers. “Agencies like the one I work for don’t want to train us, because that costs money and then they might lose us if we get a permanent contract.

“So we’re completely reliant on the agency. If you say no to a job, the agency can get annoyed and then you might not get offered the next contract. So you get pressured into accepting job that are too far away, or where you have to work a ‘trial’ where you are forced to work for free, and you still might not get the job,” she added.

All sectors rely on temporary workers for labour. Temporary contracts allow bosses to get workers without having to pay them properly or offer them proper job security. But Sky argued that this issue is rooted in the wider system.

“The irony is that I’m filling a gap that shouldn’t exist in the first place. Schools need me,” Sky said, “But they let me go because they haven’t got enough funding. So I’m reliant on the council and government to actually give schools enough money to hire me in the first place.

“This is Starmer’s own creation—he said he’ll create 6,000 new teaching jobs, but that doesn’t even cover the number of teachers leaving each year. But temporary work agencies profit off workers being in this position.”

Tharun argued that some workers may see the flexibility of a zero hours contract as beneficial. “The flexibility can be a good thing. But if you’re forced into a zero hours contract, and if you’re an average adult, you need a stable source of income. Zero hours contracts don’t provide that.

“I don’t get the hours I want. I’ve wanted more hours for a while but not got them.”

Across Britain, bosses benefit from workers in precarious positions. In education, zero hours contracts provide the government an excuse to underfund schools.

Zero hours contracts treat workers as disposable and puts them in vulnerable positions and to the benefit of the private bosses and a Labour government that doesn’t want to upset business.

ZERO HOURS ORIGINATED IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND IN THE AUSTERITY CRISIS OF THE NINTEEN NINTIES!