Bad news first. According to the latest figures, there are now 910,000 people on zero-hours contracts, representing a record high. More positively, the think-tank Resolution notes that the pace of growth for zero-hours contracts slowed rapidly in the second half of 2016, due to a combination of factors, including rising public awareness, employers fearing that Brexit could lead to a struggle to recruit labour and employers not wanting the kind of negative publicity that the likes of Sports Direct attracted. So, perhaps there’s been a refocusing from these employers towards the workforce? Well, maybe… maybe not.
In truth, zero-hours contracts (ZHC) aren’t the scourge of everyone’s existence. The flexibility suits certain sectors of the workforce (retirees, students, carers). The problem is that for many, zero-hours contracts were not made optional. The oft-trumpeted flexibility has never been an advantage to people who need full-time, guaranteed work, many of whom have families to support. Nor does it let employers off the ethical hook about the disgraceful dearth of workers’ rights and protections, such as a minimum wage, holiday pay and sick pay.
In this way, Brexit emerges as something of a red herring. It wasn’t as though the EU demanded the systematic erosion of workers’ rights – the companies did that all by themselves. They also robbed low-income workers of their basic dignity. Many ZHC workers not only don’t know whether they will be working on any given day, they can also be punished for being unavailable. When they work, they’re often forced to scrape by on a complicated patchwork of low wages and supplementary welfare benefits.
Basically, these contracts have set too many people on a stressful, humiliating path where they’re completely dependent on employers, who are usually neither paying them sufficiently, nor adequately protecting them. Which, in worker-oppression bingo, sounds like a full house.
As all the power-imbalanced recruitment is done out of sight, society is spared the scenes of desperate people queueing in the street for work, which was on full public view during bygone eras, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t still there in what could be termed “post-ethical” phantom form.
In this context, the idea that this slowdown might represent a brave new dawn for workers seems a mite optimistic. Even if peak-ZHC has been reached, what happens next?
Only last week, DPD delivery drivers spoke of how they are often forced to find replacements for their own shifts or face a fine.
This suggests an ongoing climate of not so much unemployment as under-employment, with people scrabbling to get by on unreliable inadequate incomes, while official government unemployment figures are kept artificially low.
However, with all the focus on employers, the attitude of the workers could also prove very interesting. Some employers have already noted that employees leave as soon they’re offered a chance of a permanent contract, which could be a sign of things to come.
Indeed, in the rush to have things all their own way, bosses seem to have completely failed to factor in that a workforce that feels invested and secure ultimately leads to a more successful business model, not least in terms of worker loyalty.
Such companies may find that it was a mistake not to provide even the most basic levels of job satisfaction or security. In a wonderfully ironic twist, their workers would be perfectly within their rights to feel zero commitment to businesses that cynically placed them on zero-hours contracts they didn’t want and couldn’t survive on.
In years to come, as the power balance shifts, it may be that zero-hours businesses finally end up with the disenfranchised, underperforming, fast-dwindling workforce they deserve. Indeed, what is big business going to do should it come to pass that their zero-hours workers decide that they owe them, well… zero?
Forget fashion – Zara’s curve ball is plain wrong
How inspiring that fashion outlet Zara ran a jeans campaign, imploring women to “love your curves”. Too bad that the accompanying photo featured what appeared to be two prepubescents with bottoms the size of conkers.
Snapped in a Dublin shop by radio broadcaster Muireann O’Connell, the image swiftly went viral. However, this isn’t about thin-hate, model-hate or even Zara-hate. Most designers believe that their clothes look best on the young and slender and until they’re convinced otherwise, the fashion paradigm will not change.
However, is it too much to ask that a clothes company such as Zara think twice about running an actual “love your curves” campaign featuring models who appear to have the BMIs of gel pens? It seems inconceivable that at no stage in the developmental process did anybody at Zara think to say: “Oh, hang on a minute…”.
No disrespect to the models, but the fact is that they don’t have curves – they have curves-in-waiting. Which is why females, with or without curves, could be forgiven for looking at Zara’s campaign and feeling angry, depressed and ever so slightly creeped out on behalf of all women.
Meals on wheels won’t kill eating out
A new study reports that the demand for home-delivered, ready-to-eat food grew at 10 times the rate of dining out in 2016. Moreover, home-delivered, restaurant-quality meals have soared in popularity because of firms such as Deliveroo, Just Eat and Hungryhouse, which deliver from restaurants and other dining outlets, including pubs.
In some cases, the bill for home delivery isn’t much smaller – just around £1 lower for food consumed away from the premises. All of which seems to prove that for some the restaurant experience doesn’t require an actual restaurant. And that, increasingly, people aren’t prepared to go to all the trouble of going out to eat at their favourite restaurant – not when they can have the same food while sprawling on the sofa in a novelty mermaid blanket watching Homeland.
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I don’t know which question to start with: “What have we become?” or “Is anyone else feeling hungry?” Certainly, it’s chilling to consider that restaurants may be going the same way as the rest of the high street – as in “use it or lose it”. It risks making visiting restaurants obsolete, just another bygone historical ritual, such as medieval banquets.
Apocalypse Deliveroo anybody? However, let’s not panic. It seems to me that this hot food-delivered concept has long been with us, though before it was called (erm) “getting a takeaway”. Or, after annoying people had been watching too much American television, “take-out”.
The point is that it didn’t signify the end of restaurant culture before, and nor does it now, even if the food is from slightly nicer restaurants and delivered by a cheerful chap on a moped.
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