So-called ‘flexi-contracts’, whether that’s zero, eight or ten hours – none of which can provide a living – allow low-level management unaccountable power to dictate workers’ hours
- Brendan Burchell
New research on two supermarket chains, one UK and one US, shows that a range of flexible employment practices – extending far beyond just zero-hour contracts – cause widespread anxiety, stress and ‘depressed mental states’ in workers as a result of financial and social uncertainty, and can block worker access to education as well as much-needed additional income.
The findings are included in a report submitted to the government consultation on zero hour contracts at the request of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills.
The report’s authors, from Cambridge University’s Department of Sociology, say the UK government should widen the net in reviewing damaging employment practices, arguing that employees be granted the right to make statutory claims to work additional core hours and have a say in the scheduling of their hours.
“Zero hour contracts are the tip of the iceberg; just one small manifestation of this much wider problem in our workplaces,” said Dr Brendan Burchell, Head of Department and co-author on the report, compiled with his PhD candidate Alex Wood.
“Workplace flexibility is thought of as helping employees, but it has become completely subverted across much of the service sector to suit the employer – and huge numbers of workers are suffering as a consequence.
“So-called ‘flexi-contracts’, whether that’s zero, eight or ten hours – none of which can provide a living – allow low-level management unaccountable power to dictate workers’ hours and consequent income to a damaging extent that is open to incompetency and abuse.”
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Image: The consumer society is happy (for a while)
Credit: Markus Schopke
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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