Calls to ‘boycott’ employer recently praised for staff bonuses
Sports gear chain Sports Direct – last week hailed as a model employer for its generous employee bonus scheme – is coming under mounting pressure to explain itself after it has been found to employ 90 per cent of its staff on so-called ‘zero-hour’ contracts.
The revelation – uncovered in an investigation by The Guardian – finds most of the store’s 20,000 part-time workers don’t know how many hours they will work from week to week, which means they are also exempt from sickness and holiday pay.
Initially brought in to help employers respond to short-term peaks in demand for staff, zero-hour contracts have been growing in controversy as they have increasingly turned into a more permanent arrangement.
Official figures now show the number of zero-hour contract workers has trebled since 2005, to more than 200,000. The number of UK employers with more than 100 staff using zero-hours contracts grew from 11 to 23 per cent between 2004 and 2011.
Andy Sawford MP, who last month presented a private members’ bill against the practice said: “Zero hours contracts are now widespread in many sectors of the economy and are particularly prevalent in areas of higher unemployment where the lowest paid and most vulnerable workers in Britain exist without knowing when the next payday might come.”
He added: “People tell me about waiting for a call or turning up to the workplace day after day, only to find that there is no work, yet their contracts make it difficult to find alternative employment. It would be much better for Sports Direct to offer their staff the security of proper contracts. Zero-hours contracts are highly exploitative and suit the company because it keeps people in a fragile state where they are at the beck and call of their employers."
The UK’s largest Union, Unite, has now written a letter to Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley asking him to explain his use of the contracts. Unite’s regional secretary Annmarie Kilcline said: “We are seriously concerned that a culture of low pay and poor treatment has embedded itself at Sport Direct.”
Pressure group, 38 Degrees, has also written to the sports chain, and is urging workers and shoppers to boycott the store. Visitors to its website can email a letter straight to the Sports Direct managing director, and as of the 30thof July, more than 3,000 emails had been sent.
Last month, business secretary Vince Cable pledged to review the practice of short-term contracts, with a special focus on how they operate when it comes to giving staff state benefits.
In a debate on the matter, Lib Dem Lord Oakeshott said: “What is really shocking is that people who get not a penny a month don’t show up in the unemployment statistics. A zero-hours contract with zero pay for a month is not really a contract and people on them should count as unemployed.”
Shadow business minister for employment relations, Ian Murray said: “We understand zero-hours contracts have built up because of flexibility, but to be used across an entire retail establishment is unacceptable.”
Arcadia (parent company of Next, Top Shop, BHS, Burton, and Miss Selfridge) stopped using zero-hours contracts in 2005.
Sports Direct declined to comment.