The use of zero hours contracts is on the increase, and from the employer's point of view, it is obvious why. You can dump workers for a few days and then call them back for few hours, when ever you feel the need. The employer simply has no responsibility to the worker, but the worker has a responsibility to turn up when demanded or get fired. A one sided system that greatly benefits the employer, but simply abuses the employee. It removes the possibility of managing your financial affairs, since you have no idea how much you will earn from week to week. You could be hit with weeks or months on a few days wages a week, but the bills keep coming in at the same pace and are increasing week on week as energy and food prices keep climbing.
If we keep the same economic system then you can rest assured the zero hours contracts are here to stay and will become the norm, no matter where you are employed. We can boycott the employers that use this serf style employment system, and campaign against it. However the only way to guarantee the end to employer abusing employee is to get rid of the system of capitalism and create a workers controlled economic system, that sees to the needs of all our people and not to the greed of a bunch of parasitic employers.
Stop abusing zero hour contracts
I have been working at the Hollister
store now since May. What I have witnessed has been a clear violation
of workers’ rights. The companies Hollister and Gilly Hicks are
sister companies of Abercrombie and Fitch. I work for the flagship
Hollister store in Regent Street. Being a flagship store, it should
be setting an example to all other stores about its employment
ethics, but it’s not.
At the beginning of December all overnight staff were told
their shifts are being dropped to one a week and the hours
shortened to four hour shifts instead of five hours.
People working twenty - thirty hours a week have now been told they
will only work four hours, eight if they're lucky. Staff who
have been working for up to three years have been told to "get
on with it" and accept the change. All of these people
are on zero hour contracts, meaning the company has no obligation to
them and that the employees have very little rights.
This is completely unethical. Abercrombie are standing by this
injustice, in the name of zero hour contracts.
People that work for Abercrombie are dependent on the reliability of
shifts that have been given to them over the year. And without notice
this has been taken away from them, because they were forced to go on
zero hour contracts. Some were forced on zero hour contracts with no
formal consent.
No information was given as to why these cutbacks have happened, just
that the workers, me included, have to get on and accept it. This
has left people worried about paying rent and bills. So close to
Christmas. It’s saddening and completely unethical.
Most of the overnight work force are migrants relying on this job as
their main income. Young people and mothers will now be spending
Christmas in London with no financial security.
What’s worse is that Abercrombie are employing more overnight
staff. Twenty were employed last week. Surely with cutbacks being
made, employing more staff is the last thing they should do?
A zero hour contract is supposed to give people flexibility, but
Abercrombie are abusing this and taking advantage of their powerless
staff. They have abused legalities to suit them, with no care for the
workers which depend on them, this is cruel and saddening.
In order to give people that feel silenced a voice at Abercrombie I
have set up this petition, please join our fight for ethics and the
abolishment of the exploitative zero hours contract.
Abolish the zero hours contract and adopt a part time contract. Provide at least a months notice of any
drastic changes to the workplace and schedules
By Charles Mason, London.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
