Zero-Hour Contracts Essays Example

The legal and scholarly world has yet to arrive at a conclusive definition of Zero-hour hour contracts. In practise however, the a zero contract is used to refer to the contracts in which the employer offers no guarantees to the employee for provision of work and the employee in exchange has no obligation to accept any work offered. Such contracts are legitimate under the domestic law if entered to voluntarily and are surprisingly prevalent across numerous sectors in the economy.
Nonetheless, it is apparent that these types of contracts where an employee has no guarantees to a defined amount of hours in a day or otherwise the system is prone to various abuses and emergent of unfairness and even absurdities in such an agreement or payment system.
Consequently, addressing the regulations of such contracts especially in light of such abuses, is the primary focus and aim of this essay. The main argument here is that although the free market as philosophical concept is excellent, the contemporary industrial market reality speaks for itself in its current global imbalance. The reality of the common global market, from any facet of analysis, whether macro, micro, or any other term - that can also be cleverly used by those who understand it to diminish the interaction of those who do not - is that current monetary paradigms are not working in everyone's favour.
Here, we continue to analyse the impact of these contracts and put forward the theses that: in order for policies in this sector to be stabilised, re-evaluated, and delivered across a broad spectrum (inclusive of any type of worker that is subject to contractual variables in the current job market), that the ability for “zero hours contracts” to be applied in any way, must be legislated by (1) strict guidelines, (2) enforceable by a central body, that is in touch, and balanced with, the necessities of everyday life, (3) in as much that strict guarantees must be available for workers in all areas and vocations, and not vulnerable to the “personal” choices of those in hiring positions.
The experiences of this worker will be used to reflect, discuss, and finally define, a way of dealing with “zero hours contracts”, and the resulting answer will put the question of “What are they and how do you consider they should be regulated.
The structure will follow a brief introduction of what the person was doing vocationally when they were in contact with “zero hours contracts”, and further discussion on the issues that arise with this legislative anomaly (the term “anomaly” is used here because as mentioned, the term in itself is not held to any particular regulatory statute, and as such, is currently being reviewed in regards to its meaning and ramifications for workers and businesses in the United Kingdom).
Here, we continue to analyse the impact of these contracts and put forward the theses that: in order for policies in this sector to be stabilised, re-evaluated, and delivered across a broad spectrum (inclusive of any type of worker that is subject to contractual variables in the current job market), that the ability for “zero hours contracts” to be applied in any way, must be legislated by (1) strict guidelines, (2) enforceable by a central body, that is in touch, and balanced with, the necessities of everyday life, (3) in as much that strict guarantees must be available for workers in all areas and vocations, and not vulnerable to the “personal” choices of those in hiring positions.
Of course, this is a large oversimplification, but it goes in hand with the thinking in the free-market that as long as one is not “guilty” per se, i.e. “probably in court” (in this case under tribunal law), they cannot be called into account for anything. Where in reality, we know for a fact if people understand a particular system, that there will always be those who try to subvert it. Such “subversion” is especially apparent in the employee market of Eastern European workers in the U.K. Enter the situation where a person is employed by businesses, in this case a small coffee shop, in a busy part of London, both employer and employee belonging to families and or persons whom have immigrated from their original country, and seek a working life in a cosmopolitan area.
The particular issue(s) here are connected to the fact that there is really only one postulate that these people have to abide by, which is common employment law, visible only in declared numerical transactions. The issue, is what happens to both parties involved in a system, where the worker is at the volition of attaining an amount of money from another party, whom may have more financial resources, and thus, is often required to submit to whatever contractual obligations are put forward to them; whether by formal written disclosure, or inter-personal communication. The precise downfall of this system is evident in the running of many businesses where those “in charge” are able to find “leeway”, “loop-holes” and any other means of subjecting employees and those connected, to payment practices that have: the option to capitalise on further personal benefit that is not equal to the “price” they ask from those they are paying.
In this particular case, even though there was no wrongdoing of any “extreme nature” – in regards to the communal legal definition - there were certainly a list of misdemeanours connected to the aforementioned individual when it came to his employment practices, which also, and interestingly: were not “illegal” by the strict definition of the term. The negative aspects of the circumstances that this particular employee found themselves in was that she was required to work from when the café opened around 6am for 6 days a week until it closed, which was normally around 6pm. The time was inclusive of work after this point in her also cleaning the premises and preparing it for the next day. She was only paid a set “daily” amount, via weekly “cash in hand.
The paper in alignment with the topic will analyse the means and methods that the authoritative bodies including the government can use to regulate such contracts. It is obvious from this paper that the systems regulation to protect the people who would otherwise be subject to abuse. To fully analyse and even appreciate the governments and other bodies’ role in the regulation we must first understand that the government’s strategy is guided by the intent to create a situation where the employers and their employees create the arrangements most beneficial to them. The result of such arrangements is to create a flexible employment contract framework rather than constrain employment contracts.
First, the government must improve the content and accessibility of information. The information must include guidance and advice on the employment rights and the contracts, and the benefits entitlement of zero-hours workers to benefits. To better facilitate this the government could provide easily accessible online tools for calculating the benefits, statutory leaves, redundancy or sick pay. Furthermore, the government must also avail the guidance of the Zero-hour contracts and provide simplified but adequate guides covering the statutory provisions that guide the employment rights.
Encouraging the employers to lead and implement a Code of Practices on fair use of Zero-hours contracts. The Code would entail best practises associated with the Zero-hour contracts. The code for example would outline the different circumstances and the suitability of Zero-hour contracts. If necessary the government could spearhead and sponsor the code.
Finally, the government could also provide model clauses for the Zero-hour contracts. The model clauses, especially in conjunction with the code of practices would be extremely effective in prevent abuse of the contracts. The government would achieve this by providing a template for the contracts; this template would contain the basic clauses that a contract is expected to have. The employers and the employees could then now tailor and modify the template to fit their present situation.
In addition, the government must tackle the exclusivity clauses in the Zero-hour contracts and provide a practical solution to them. The main challenge of institution such restriction is the legitimate purposes that these contracts serve; these include protecting confidential information and preventing unfair competition where the employee chooses to work with the competitor. However, the exclusivity contracts should only exist to serve the purposes of protecting the legitimate business interest and must also be justifiable. There has already been improvement in this area where an individual at the present can challenge the exclusivity clauses if unfair or absurd.
The primary goal of governmental regulation is to ensure that the employers and the employees have a cordial working relationship that is unhampered by unfairness or even the aforementioned absurdity. It is to that effect that the employers and their employees should be able to contract and operate with minimum governmental interference.
In conclusion, this is the foundation of the ethics, which this paper is suggesting, are required to repair the industrial working market, in regards to removing grey area legal issues such as those connected to “zero hours contracts”. A re-evaluation of several common notions is required: (1) My vocational business is my own and no-one else's, and (2) I am answerable to only the stipulations of tribunal law. These tribunal laws must appreciate, and be able to understand the complexities and the issues that arise from the “freedom” allowed by the “free-market”, and therefore: include enforceable approaches for eradicating the possibility of individual persons subverting standardised minimum hourly wage legislation(s) by private inter-employer interpretation, that re-forms the damage done by prevalent capitalist ideologies.