http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25766558



Yeah, that just about covers it.

Plus, obviously, to people on zero hours contracts the minimum wage is actually pretty irrelevant.

I still think zero hour contracts should be banned.

Why

I was one one many yearts ago long before they become known as Zero Hours Contracts and it suited my lifestyle (as a student) just fine

Yes they can be abused but then so any any contract - e.g. I'm paid a fixed wage (no O/T) and my contract says that I may need to do some extra hours from time to time - my Boss could say that he want me to do 10 hrs ectra a week - I could argue that is not "time to time" but unless I wanted to go to court or leave the Co I would have to just suck it up

My contract says the same thing. However, if you get a boss who tries that and you don't fight it, you're a mug.

If you banned them you'd technically ban temp work unless everybody was self-employed.

Well you know the sort of thing I mean.
eg Ryan air have their pilots on zero hours contracts, so they don't get paid holiday, they don't get paid sick leave etc, they have no guarentee of income.
How are people supposed to like like that?

Maybe they could limit companies to a maximum of (say) 5% of employees on zero hour contacts?

Then (esp someone highly trained like a pilot) can if they wish move to an airline who does provide the perks they want - or may be Ryan air pay a slightly higher salary to make uop for the loss of other perks

You don't need to ban zero hour contracts you just have to make it so any employment contract, regardless of other conditions, must include certain clauses (e.g. legal minimum holidays and sickness entitlement or whatever). You can have a zero hour contract that still treats the employee fairly. What we need to get rid of are exploitative contracts, regardless of whether they guarantee any amount of actual work or not.

I had something similar doing bar work as a student. It was not zero hours though, I had a good idea of my hours and days each week, most had fixed shifts. Though the only condition was you had to work Christmas eve and/or New Years eve shifts. Some would only want one but they could work around it. Plus it was time and a half or double time on those nights.