No to zero hour contracts – Fight for real jobs

Youth Fight For Jobs Protest

Sports Direct, Argyll Street, Glasgow

Saturday 3rd August 1.30pm 

Are you sick of your boss and being treated like an exploited slave? The work we do is soul destroying enough already without the tricks and hassle the managers and bosses cause every day of the week. Are we paid enough to put up with being called in at a moment’s notice for a shift one week and then not having enough hours to pay the bills the next? These bosses make millions in profits out of us being flexible while we live at their beck and call and at the mercy of pay day loan companies.

The zero hour contract is a common trick used to exploit millions of young workers in retail and service industries. Big chains like Tesco and B&Q like to claim they don’t engage in this practice but in reality they offer minimum guarantee of hour “5,6,7 hour” contracts to many employees who have to hope they are granted more hours in a week to make a living.

Sports Direct – Rewards for the Managers, Nothing for shop floor slaves

Sports Direct got themselves in the press as a “model employer” recently for paying bonus shares to “full time staff”. However the only staff to benefit from this will be those who have worked for the company full time from 2009. Most of these workers are Managers. 20,000 shop floor workers, 90% of Sports Direct staff are on zero hour contracts and will receive nothing. They rather than enjoying security and bonuses have no rights to holiday and sick pay and do not know how many hours they will work each week. Even those entitled to the bonuses according to the Unite union can be excluded “based on sales performance” by senior managers. Sports Direct is owned by Newcastle United owner and billionaire tycoon Mike Ashley who forces the players to advertise notorious payday lender Wonga on their shirts.

The “Zero Hour Contract” suits all who benefit from this rotten profit driven system of capitalism. Bosses and managers have a workforce at their mercy who they can hire and drop at will at the minimum cost. The politicians get to claim lower unemployment figures when in reality millions are underemployed. The encroachment of more of the workforce on “flexible contracts” can easily be used to undermine terms and conditions of permanent staff.

If the privatisation of Royal Mail is successful hard won rights of a workforce could be dismantled to be competitive with delivery firms like TNT who use zero hour contracts. The CWU Union who organise Royal Mail staff, already point to the example of privatised British Telecom BT, into which the union is running an investigative campaign into staff suicides in Call Centres.

The Youth Fight for Jobs Campaign says:

• No to “Zero Hour”, low hour or flexible contracts that leave us at the mercy of our bosses. We want real secure contracts with fixed minimum hours suitable to those who need to work full and part time, paid at a living wage.

• We want a living wage! If we are slaving for the bosses profits we want enough money to begin to live independently, pay the bills and maybe even the odd night out! Retail Trade Unions like USDAW campaign for a £7.45 per hour minimum wage, this would be step towards a living wage.

• No to bullying and workplace discrimination: Equal pay and conditions and bonus schemes for equal work whether younger, older, part time or full time. We want decent breaks and rights to holidays and sick pay. No to sexism and harassment.

• We want the right to organise! We want to be able to join and become active in trade unions and hold workplace meetings. No to blacklisting and harassment.