John52 Posted March 4, 2017 Share Posted March 4, 2017 This is the reality of the Governments claims of low unemployment. Zero Hours Contracts have increased exponentially since the Tories came to power, With many relying on benefits to top up their irregular wages to the level of escalating housing costs. And the Government escalating borrowing to pay their housing benefits. Strong economy? Should they be counting these as real jobs? If it was a job wouldn't they be guaranteed work every week? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pelmetman Posted March 4, 2017 Share Posted March 4, 2017 What's the big deal?......I spent nearly 30 years on a zero hour contract.......but we called it being self employed :D ........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted March 4, 2017 Share Posted March 4, 2017 John52 - 2017-03-04 9:08 AM This is the reality of the Governments claims of low unemployment. Zero Hours Contracts have increased exponentially since the Tories came to power, With many relying on benefits to top up their irregular wages to the level of escalating housing costs. And the Government escalating borrowing to pay their housing benefits. Strong economy? Should they be counting these as real jobs? If it was a job wouldn't they be guaranteed work every week? No imo if employed by an employer they should only be counting contracted jobs......full and p/time. Self employed whilst not having a contract as such, won't be claiming benefits.....or shouldn't be though many 'black market' workers do via cash in hand work etc. Zero hour contracts give no security and no future. For example they cannot apply for a mortgage and people living rented are walking a tightrope usually resulting in them getting chucked out when they fall behind on rent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antony1969 Posted March 4, 2017 Share Posted March 4, 2017 Bulletguy - 2017-03-04 2:47 PM John52 - 2017-03-04 9:08 AM This is the reality of the Governments claims of low unemployment. Zero Hours Contracts have increased exponentially since the Tories came to power, With many relying on benefits to top up their irregular wages to the level of escalating housing costs. And the Government escalating borrowing to pay their housing benefits. Strong economy? Should they be counting these as real jobs? If it was a job wouldn't they be guaranteed work every week? No imo if employed by an employer they should only be counting contracted jobs......full and p/time. Self employed whilst not having a contract as such, won't be claiming benefits.....or shouldn't be though many 'black market' workers do via cash in hand work etc. Zero hour contracts give no security and no future. For example they cannot apply for a mortgage and people living rented are walking a tightrope usually resulting in them getting chucked out when they fall behind on rent. Dont or shouldn't all people that fall behind on rent get chucked out ??? ... They have after all gone against an agreement between the two ... Landlords aren't in business to fall for hard luck stories , they may well have borrowed to make a buck themselves ... Charity it isn't Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted March 4, 2017 Share Posted March 4, 2017 antony1969 - 2017-03-04 6:03 PM Bulletguy - 2017-03-04 2:47 PM John52 - 2017-03-04 9:08 AM This is the reality of the Governments claims of low unemployment. Zero Hours Contracts have increased exponentially since the Tories came to power, With many relying on benefits to top up their irregular wages to the level of escalating housing costs. And the Government escalating borrowing to pay their housing benefits. Strong economy? Should they be counting these as real jobs? If it was a job wouldn't they be guaranteed work every week? No imo if employed by an employer they should only be counting contracted jobs......full and p/time. Self employed whilst not having a contract as such, won't be claiming benefits.....or shouldn't be though many 'black market' workers do via cash in hand work etc. Zero hour contracts give no security and no future. For example they cannot apply for a mortgage and people living rented are walking a tightrope usually resulting in them getting chucked out when they fall behind on rent. Dont or shouldn't all people that fall behind on rent get chucked out ??? ... They have after all gone against an agreement between the two ... Landlords aren't in business to fall for hard luck stories , they may well have borrowed to make a buck themselves ... Charity it isn't I hope for your sake you took the opportunity to pay off your mortgage when interest was at it's lowest? Your mortgage provider isn't a "charity" either but you'd be first to blart if your house got repo'ed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antony1969 Posted March 4, 2017 Share Posted March 4, 2017 Bulletguy - 2017-03-04 6:24 PM antony1969 - 2017-03-04 6:03 PM Bulletguy - 2017-03-04 2:47 PM John52 - 2017-03-04 9:08 AM This is the reality of the Governments claims of low unemployment. Zero Hours Contracts have increased exponentially since the Tories came to power, With many relying on benefits to top up their irregular wages to the level of escalating housing costs. And the Government escalating borrowing to pay their housing benefits. Strong economy? Should they be counting these as real jobs? If it was a job wouldn't they be guaranteed work every week? No imo if employed by an employer they should only be counting contracted jobs......full and p/time. Self employed whilst not having a contract as such, won't be claiming benefits.....or shouldn't be though many 'black market' workers do via cash in hand work etc. Zero hour contracts give no security and no future. For example they cannot apply for a mortgage and people living rented are walking a tightrope usually resulting in them getting chucked out when they fall behind on rent. Dont or shouldn't all people that fall behind on rent get chucked out ??? ... They have after all gone against an agreement between the two ... Landlords aren't in business to fall for hard luck stories , they may well have borrowed to make a buck themselves ... Charity it isn't I hope for your sake you took the opportunity to pay off your mortgage when interest was at it's lowest? Your mortgage provider isn't a "charity" either but you'd be first to blart if your house got repo'ed. Thankfully dont have a mortgage but if I did I wouldnt expect any mortgage company I had an agreement/contract with to pay for my hard luck story ... Its called taking responsibility ... Something that in our blame culture we seem to have lost the ability to be responsible for Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John52 Posted March 5, 2017 Author Share Posted March 5, 2017 I googled a zero hours contract to take a look. The clause that stopped workers working for anyone else when their 'employer' didn't provide any work was finally recognised as unfair and outlawed last year. But all the contract says is in effect 'We might provide you with work and you will abide by our conditions if we do' How can they take responsibility for paying rent when their 'employer' has no responsibility to pay them wages? So evictions are at a record high, with familes often rehoused in places which cost more in housing benefit than the rent would have done. :-S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartO Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 John52 - 2017-03-05 7:49 AMI googled a zero hours contract to take a look. The clause that stopped workers working for anyone else when their 'employer' didn't provide any work was finally recognised as unfair and outlawed last year.But all the contract says is in effect 'We might provide you with work and you will abide by our conditions if we do'How can they take responsibility for paying rent when their 'employer' has no responsibility to pay them wages?So evictions are at a record high, with familes often rehoused in places which cost more in housing benefit than the rent would have done. :-S I agree that binding an employee to a zero hours employment (i.e. banning them from taking other work as well) is unfair and I'm pleased to see that it's been banned. I'd like to see zero hours contracting replaced with minimum hours arrangements so that employees are guaranteed a worthwhile minimum number of hours per week. Employers make profit from taking on employees so they should take some risk of having to guarantee regular work. However becoming a tenant is a separate responsibility and you are obliged to pay your rent on time regardless of how you choose to earn a living. Your landlord cannot oblige you to stay in the same job or even to stay in work at all. Renting a home is completely separate from employment. Some landlords will even accept new tenants who are not in work, although many won't - and they cannot throw people out simply because they stop earning. But landlords can of course eveict people for not paying rent. Landlords don't evict people lightly however because it takes time (far longer than a tenant has to give notice in order to quit) involves going to court, costs quite a lot of money and might well result in the property being deliberately trashed. There has been a programme on Channel 5 recently which illustrated very well that although there are bad lanlord, there are also exploitove and manipulative bad tenants, including those who play on the fact they have children to force the council to rehouse them. I don't think it's reasonable to look at one side without also looking at the other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teflon2 Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 Bulletguy - 2017-03-04 6:24 PM antony1969 - 2017-03-04 6:03 PM Bulletguy - 2017-03-04 2:47 PM John52 - 2017-03-04 9:08 AM This is the reality of the Governments claims of low unemployment. Zero Hours Contracts have increased exponentially since the Tories came to power, With many relying on benefits to top up their irregular wages to the level of escalating housing costs. And the Government escalating borrowing to pay their housing benefits. Strong economy? Should they be counting these as real jobs? If it was a job wouldn't they be guaranteed work every week? No imo if employed by an employer they should only be counting contracted jobs......full and p/time. Self employed whilst not having a contract as such, won't be claiming benefits.....or shouldn't be though many 'black market' workers do via cash in hand work etc. Zero hour contracts give no security and no future. For example they cannot apply for a mortgage and people living rented are walking a tightrope usually resulting in them getting chucked out when they fall behind on rent. Dont or shouldn't all people that fall behind on rent get chucked out ??? ... They have after all gone against an agreement between the two ... Landlords aren't in business to fall for hard luck stories , they may well have borrowed to make a buck themselves ... Charity it isn't I hope for your sake you took the opportunity to pay off your mortgage when interest was at it's lowest? Your mortgage provider isn't a "charity" either but you'd be first to blart if your house got repo'ed. When I bought my house the interest rate hit 15% you just had to tighten your belt and work harder and I also had to put down a 20% deposit which I built up by saving with the same Building society when I started work at 14, you budgeted to get what you wanted and got on with it its called responsibility and my first house cost 15 times my annual income that's why the deposit was so high you do without to get what's important to you. John *-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 teflon2 - 2017-03-05 9:26 PM Bulletguy - 2017-03-04 6:24 PM antony1969 - 2017-03-04 6:03 PM Bulletguy - 2017-03-04 2:47 PM John52 - 2017-03-04 9:08 AM This is the reality of the Governments claims of low unemployment. Zero Hours Contracts have increased exponentially since the Tories came to power, With many relying on benefits to top up their irregular wages to the level of escalating housing costs. And the Government escalating borrowing to pay their housing benefits. Strong economy? Should they be counting these as real jobs? If it was a job wouldn't they be guaranteed work every week? No imo if employed by an employer they should only be counting contracted jobs......full and p/time. Self employed whilst not having a contract as such, won't be claiming benefits.....or shouldn't be though many 'black market' workers do via cash in hand work etc. Zero hour contracts give no security and no future. For example they cannot apply for a mortgage and people living rented are walking a tightrope usually resulting in them getting chucked out when they fall behind on rent. Dont or shouldn't all people that fall behind on rent get chucked out ??? ... They have after all gone against an agreement between the two ... Landlords aren't in business to fall for hard luck stories , they may well have borrowed to make a buck themselves ... Charity it isn't I hope for your sake you took the opportunity to pay off your mortgage when interest was at it's lowest? Your mortgage provider isn't a "charity" either but you'd be first to blart if your house got repo'ed. When I bought my house the interest rate hit 15% you just had to tighten your belt and work harder and I also had to put down a 20% deposit which I built up by saving with the same Building society when I started work at 14, you budgeted to get what you wanted and got on with it its called responsibility and my first house cost 15 times my annual income that's why the deposit was so high you do without to get what's important to you. John *-) You were lucky John. The interest rate on my first mortgage was 17.5% and a couple of years later we took on a second mortgage to cover an Improvement Grant at the same rate. When i looked at the figures it took us to the cost of a brand new house which only two years previous we'd been told we couldn't get a mortgage for as we weren't earning enough. That was how they got young first time buyers into older property. What went wrong imo came much later on under Thatchers "right to buy" offering council houses at a cheap price. It was enough to tempt those in social housing to dip their toes into the world of capitalism as they quickly found out how much they could make. Today we have a huge shortage of social housing. However, it's worth bearing in mind that back then there was no such thing as zero hour contract work. You either had a job......or were on the social. I remember Agency workers first coming in. I'd never heard of it before but a couple of girls i knew started their own Agency. Rented a dingy old shop premises and within a couple of years were swanning around in top o' the range motors.....one had a BMW her mate drove a Merc. How was this possible after just a coupe of years?? I began to see how and why via the place i worked who took on Agency workers. Hire 'n fire as we used to call it. They did the same work as us, but their rate of pay was lower plus they had no sick entitlement. They would work at a frenetic pace too because they were in permanent fear of being given the shove.....as a fair few often were. A work colleague who was on management told us about the costs the company paid to the Agency.......which was more than it cost to set someone on a full contract. Figure that one out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John52 Posted March 6, 2017 Author Share Posted March 6, 2017 Bulletguy - 2017-03-05 10:45 PM However, it's worth bearing in mind that back then there was no such thing as zero hour contract work. You either had a job......or were on the social. Yes thats true. And either way it was a regular income to pay the rent on a council house. Nothing wrong with people buying their council house of course. Problem was they were sold below market value and what money it raised was frittered away instead of invested in building more housing. Short term political expediency to win the next election as usual. :-S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derek pringle Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 hi, Using agencies is playing in to bad employers hands imo as it simply means the employer only has a contract with the actual agency and not the agency employees. Many of these contracts allow the employer to end the contract with little or minimum notice. If an employer wants to be fair and value its workers then they could employ direct and use the agency premium to increase terms and pay for the hands on workers. cheers derek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muswell Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 derek pringle - 2017-03-06 9:08 AM hi, Using agencies is playing in to bad employers hands imo as it simply means the employer only has a contract with the actual agency and not the agency employees. Many of these contracts allow the employer to end the contract with little or minimum notice. If an employer wants to be fair and value its workers then they could employ direct and use the agency premium to increase terms and pay for the hands on workers. cheers derek You can't generalise. When I was working a lot of draughtsmen/women preferred to work contract because they could earn more than the permanent staff...which had the effect of pushing up the salaries of the permanent staff to stop them going contract. The minimum notice cut both ways, it's not good when you have a big deadline and someone comes in to tell you he's off ASAP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 Muswell - 2017-03-06 10:05 AM derek pringle - 2017-03-06 9:08 AM hi, Using agencies is playing in to bad employers hands imo as it simply means the employer only has a contract with the actual agency and not the agency employees. Many of these contracts allow the employer to end the contract with little or minimum notice. If an employer wants to be fair and value its workers then they could employ direct and use the agency premium to increase terms and pay for the hands on workers. cheers derek You can't generalise. When I was working a lot of draughtsmen/women preferred to work contract because they could earn more than the permanent staff...which had the effect of pushing up the salaries of the permanent staff to stop them going contract. The minimum notice cut both ways, it's not good when you have a big deadline and someone comes in to tell you he's off ASAP. That wasn't the case with my employer.......and without mentioning the name specific, just think of Military Defence and you've got it. It's British but international and locally it's considered as one of the better employers. Agency employees were on a lower hourly rate with less entitlements yet the company paid out more to the Agency than what it cost to set a full time contract employee on. I'm not sure if any laws have been brought in since Agency working first began but going back to when it did, anyone could set up an Agency. No training, no skills, no nothing......all you needed was a business name, empty shop to stick a table and chair in, a phone line, and that was it......you were in business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derek pringle Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 Muswell - 2017-03-06 10:05 AM derek pringle - 2017-03-06 9:08 AM hi, Using agencies is playing in to bad employers hands imo as it simply means the employer only has a contract with the actual agency and not the agency employees. Many of these contracts allow the employer to end the contract with little or minimum notice. If an employer wants to be fair and value its workers then they could employ direct and use the agency premium to increase terms and pay for the hands on workers. cheers derek You can't generalise. When I was working a lot of draughtsmen/women preferred to work contract because they could earn more than the permanent staff...which had the effect of pushing up the salaries of the permanent staff to stop them going contract. The minimum notice cut both ways, it's not good when you have a big deadline and someone comes in to tell you he's off ASAP. hi, there is also a difference between agency work and contractors, lots of people who worked like you were self employed 417, the people I was referring to are people who work FOR large agencies like Sodexo. Also I suspect a difference between draughtsmen and general labourers. cheers derek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 derek pringle - 2017-03-07 8:36 AM Muswell - 2017-03-06 10:05 AM derek pringle - 2017-03-06 9:08 AM hi, Using agencies is playing in to bad employers hands imo as it simply means the employer only has a contract with the actual agency and not the agency employees. Many of these contracts allow the employer to end the contract with little or minimum notice. If an employer wants to be fair and value its workers then they could employ direct and use the agency premium to increase terms and pay for the hands on workers. cheers derek You can't generalise. When I was working a lot of draughtsmen/women preferred to work contract because they could earn more than the permanent staff...which had the effect of pushing up the salaries of the permanent staff to stop them going contract. The minimum notice cut both ways, it's not good when you have a big deadline and someone comes in to tell you he's off ASAP. hi, there is also a difference between agency work and contractors, lots of people who worked like you were self employed 417, the people I was referring to are people who work FOR large agencies like Sodexo. Also I suspect a difference between draughtsmen and general labourers. cheers derek That was one of the Agencies my old employer used. Their rates of pay were abysmal and "staff" turnover very high. Sodexo have contracts with the NHS and the Prison service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derek pringle Posted March 8, 2017 Share Posted March 8, 2017 Bulletguy - 2017-03-07 4:48 PM derek pringle - 2017-03-07 8:36 AM Muswell - 2017-03-06 10:05 AM derek pringle - 2017-03-06 9:08 AM hi, Using agencies is playing in to bad employers hands imo as it simply means the employer only has a contract with the actual agency and not the agency employees. Many of these contracts allow the employer to end the contract with little or minimum notice. If an employer wants to be fair and value its workers then they could employ direct and use the agency premium to increase terms and pay for the hands on workers. cheers derek You can't generalise. When I was working a lot of draughtsmen/women preferred to work contract because they could earn more than the permanent staff...which had the effect of pushing up the salaries of the permanent staff to stop them going contract. The minimum notice cut both ways, it's not good when you have a big deadline and someone comes in to tell you he's off ASAP. hi, there is also a difference between agency work and contractors, lots of people who worked like you were self employed 417, the people I was referring to are people who work FOR large agencies like Sodexo. Also I suspect a difference between draughtsmen and general labourers. cheers derek That was one of the Agencies my old employer used. Their rates of pay were abysmal and "staff" turnover very high. Sodexo have contracts with the NHS and the Prison service. Hi, I am sure there must be others but this is one of the largest, to top it allI believe they are French. Why would we need companies like this when we should be looking after our own. If I were PM and there was a sniff about closures and or forced redundancies at Vauxhall, I would bear things like this in mind. It is time we stopped treating everybody like it is a game of cricket,it seems a bit more dog eat dog to me at the moment. Cheers Derek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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