Zero-hour contracts being misused

Monday 11 July 2016

An investigation into the use of zero-hour contracts in Jersey has concluded that in many cases the practice is being misused, and has called for wide-ranging changes.

Amongst the findings in the Health and Social Security Scrutiny Panel’s 54-page report is that 39 per cent of zero-hour contract employee respondents claimed they were paid less than permanent staff doing the same job; that 27 per cent were sometimes penalised for turning down hours, and that 12 per cent felt they were always penalised.

The panel describes zero-hour contracts as “an arrangement whereby an employee agrees to be available for work as and when required but no particular number of hours or times of work are specified.”

The report acknowledges that for many reasons zero-hour contracts can be good for both employers and employees, but it fears the practice is being misused.

According to the report zero-hour contracts are far more common in Jersey than in the UK, and one employer that has become very dependent on them is a States department: Social Security.

“The Panel paid particular regard to the Social Security Department which uses staff engaged on zero-hour contracts through an agency. Some of these have been working in the Department for a year or more. This suggests to the Panel a need for those agency workers to be employed on a permanent basis because hours that are regular and remain that way for an extended period of time do not reflect a typical zero-hour contract. Furthermore, agency workers are denied the benefits of working for the States such as sick-pay and being eligible to contribute to the States earnings related pension scheme (PECRS).”

Further more, the panel alleges Social Security, “...uses agency staff as a mechanism to avoid the cap on staff numbers set by the States Employment Board.”

Perhaps ironically one of the panel’s recommendations is that mechanism should exist whereby the Social Security Department can refer a zero-hour contract to the Employment Tribunal to determine whether it is appropriate.

In all there are 21 recommendations. Amongst them:

“The [Social Security] Minister should consult with a view to bringing forward proposals to amend the Employment (Jersey) Law 2003 to provide that where an employee has been working on a zero-hour / variable hour / minimum hour contract for a continuous period of six months and during that period he/she has worked for the employer on a regular basis (to be determined in legislation), the employer shall be obliged to conduct a review of the contract with the employee to determine whether it is an appropriate reflection of the hours worked in accordance with the Code of Practice or current guidelines [section 7].”

“[That] The current Zero-Hours Contracts Guide should be amended to recommend that employers pay zero-hour employees at the same rate as permanent employees unless a differential in pay rates can be justified.”

“[That] Inspectors employed by the Social Security Department must exercise increased vigilance to ensure that employees working on zero-hour contracts are paid their additional contractual holiday pay.”

And that “The current Zero-Hours Contracts Guide should be amended to recommend that employers give as much notice as possible to employees when offering work and also when cancelling pre-arranged work.”