With more than 6,000 Dunnes Stores employees taking to the picket this morning and striking, zero-hours contracts have suddenly become a major political issue in Ireland. But what exactly are they, and is there any argument to be made in their favour?
On this evening's Right Hook, George talked to Gerald Flynn, an employment specialist at Align Management Solutions, about the contracts and what they mean for employers and their employees.
Also, here are five questions you might have about the contracts:
1: What is a zero-hour contract?
Simply put, a zero-hour contract is an employment agreement offered by employers to staff that does not guarantee any hours of work to the employee at all. This means that the number of hours worked by contracted employees can vary significantly, and the worker may or may not be required to accept any hours offered to him or her.
Irish workers with zero-hour contracts are protected by the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, which mandates that if an employee gets no work, he/she should be compensated for up to 25 percent of the possible hours or for 15 hours, whichever is less for the employer.
2: What kind of employer uses zero-hour contracts?
Employers in the tourism and leisure industries, including hotels, restaurants, and catering, as well as retail and other administrative services are the most likely to be offering employees these kinds of contracts.
3: Why use zero-hour contracts?
For business, the rationale makes sense – they are much better able to balance the cost of labour with the consumer’s demand for goods and services if their employees are not on fixed hours.
The argument is that it is better for the consumer, who can avail of cheaper and better services because the employer is not obliged to absorb the costs incurred by permanent contracts or overtime – or, indeed, the cost of recruiting and training new staff to meet the regular ebb and flow of business.
As Ireland begins its post-recession recovery, zero-hour contracts are a reason why the level of unemployment has reached its lowest point since 2009. These contracts enabled employers to create jobs immediately when the demand arose, rather than having to wait for consumer demand to come back strongly enough to justify taking on full-time staff.
And for some people, casual workers and students, they can work, creating a flexible working environment around which commitments can be made. For others, it’s all they can get, and they want to work more hours than they are capable of getting.
4: What is ‘non-standard’ employment?
Zero-hours contracts represent a new model of what is referred to by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as ‘non-standard’ employment, which is work that is indefinite, not full-time and carried out by a subordinate employee.
5: Is this unique to Ireland?
Zero-hours contracts are fast becoming a political hot button all over the world, and expect to hear a lot about them in the forthcoming press coverage of the UK’s upcoming general election. Across the EU, there is not a lot of data to work off, simply because some member states do not recognise zero-hours contracts in their labour laws.
Among the nations that do, Ireland lags significantly behind the UK in terms of the number of people employed on zero-hours contracts, as well as Austria, where unemployment figures for March rose to record levels.
