Last orders on zero hours?

Britain’s largest pub chain is the latest company to announce that it will offer permanent hours to staff working on zero-hour contracts, following pressure on businesses to end the practise by campaigners and trade unions.

JD Wetherspoon will now offer its 24,000 zero-hour employees permanent contracts that guarantee hours for approximately 70 per cent of their average working week.

The announcement follows a successful trial of the measures earlier this year, in which more than two-thirds of the staff involved moved onto permanent hours.

JD Wetherspoon founder and chairman Tim Martin, said, “We’ve already offered guaranteed hour contracts to a percentage of our workforce and they’ll all be offered one in the next three months.”

Wetherspoon joins McDonalds and Sports Direct in offering workers stable contracts. Despite the pledge, however, Sports Direct has not yet agreed to directly employ the 4,000 agency staff who currently work in its warehouse on zero-hour contracts, while the chain’s retail workers have been told their new contracts will take until the end of the year to draw up.

The TUC said Wetherspoon’s decision was “great news” for the company’s workers and said other employers should take note.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said, “Guaranteeing staff minimum hours is much better than leaving them unsure about how much work they will have from one day to the next.

“We hope that other employers follow suit. The success of the Wetherspoon’s trial proves that businesses can be successful without zero-hours contracts.”

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner said that although campaigners and trade unions are increasingly successful in making employers change their minds about zero-hour contracts, comprehensive action is still needed from the government.

“Thanks to the tireless work of campaigners and trade unions like Unite, companies like Wetherspoon and Sports Direct are seeing the impact of their decisions to exploit workers on their businesses and made to think again about their use of zero hours contracts,” Turner said.

“Increasingly businesses are recognising that they have no place in the modern workplace and are bad for workers, bad for business and bad for the economy. The government should now show leadership and follow the lead of government’s like New Zealand by banning zero hours contracts.”