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Youth Fight to Scrap Zero-Hour

Contracts, Why is USDAW Silent?

Find out more: usdawactivist.wordpress.com / [email protected] / Facebook: Usdaw Activist

the ActivistIssue 46

August 2013

Bulletin of Socialist Party members in

At Sports Direct, Boots, BuckinghamPalace, Wetherspoons, even for thegovernment, zero-hour contracts arebecoming widely used. The extent ofthe use of zero-hour contracts hasbeen exposed over the last fewweeks following the revelation that90% of Sports Direct workers areemployed on this basis. Nationallyover one million people suffer onthese contracts - mainly people agedover-55 and under-25.

The flexibility and benefits they offerfor the employer are numerous but it'sa very different story when it comes to

the employees, who can go weekswithout work and are bullied into andout of hours at the whim of thebosses. Employers often call justbefore shifts start and demand staffcome in. If that member of staff can'twork they often have little chance ofgetting work again.

The big flexibility con

It's true that despite the 3.3 million

who want more hours at work, thereare also a layer of workers, such asstudents and parents, who don't wantto work full time all the time. Studentsare usually looking for more work

during the busier time of year andparents often want part time hourswhich they can fit around childcare.

But even in these cases workers don'tbenefit from the lack of hours orunreliability of a zero-hour contract.Zero-hour contracts don't mean lowhours, they mean that you could beasked to work no hours for a wholeweek and illegally high numbers ofhours the next. What is certain isturning down hours means beingdeemed inflexible by the employerand leads to less hours if not nohours at all.

Lib Dem minister Vince Cable thinkswe need to keep some zero-hourcontracts because some people wantto work a number ofjobs. But peopleonly work more than one job becausethey need more hours and pay.

The contracts were not created tohelp workers but to make a flexibleand fireable workforce which couldeasily be disposed of if they soughtbetter conditions - all part of a race to

the bottom and to unfair workingpractices. The economic crisis,created by the bankers and bigcorporations and facilitated by their

friends in Westminster, has cut offmany traditional avenues forcapitalists to make profit.

We won't pay!

The bosses are attempting to protecttheir profits by making us pay instead- whether through cutting jobs,attacking services or trying to spendless on their workforce in any waypossib le, inc luding zero-hourcontracts. If it isn't a zero-hourcontract then its workfare schemes,where unemployed people are usedto undercut the minimum wage andoffer free labour to big companies.

A 'flexible' labour market with highunemployment doesn't only allowemployers to squeeze out more profitby sending staff home early but isused to oust trade unions andorganising in workplaces.

As public services are sold off andoutsourcing increases, workingconditions in the public and private

sector will continue to drop. WhenSerco took over running communityservices in Suffolk, the companymade huge staff cuts to ensure they

At the beginning of August , SportsDirect, who had been bragging aboutbeing a model employer giving its full-time shop floor employees largebonuses, were found to be employing90% of their staff on zero hourcontracts.Scandalously USDAW have remained

silent on this issue, despite companiessuch as Boots where the union has arecogn i t ion agreement be ing implicated. Fortunately the Youth Fightfor Jobs campaign has stepped intothe void and we reprint an article bytheir London Organiser, HelenPattison below.
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Zero-hour_contractshttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Benefitshttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/UShttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Jobshttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Payhttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Trade_unionshttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Trade_unionshttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Payhttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Jobshttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/UShttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Benefitshttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Zero-hour_contracts

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Bulletin of Socialist Party members in USDAW


made more profit.

Not only does this mean worseservices but also a huge loss in pay forthe staff and being pushed onto zero-hour contracts with no guarantee ofwork. And it isn't even just outsourcedsectors which have started to use thesecontracts. Councils, the NHS and socialcare are using them widely too.

2.5 million people are unemployed andthere are five jobseekers chasing every

job. But these jobs could easily be zero-hours or commission-only jobsmeaning again the employee still hasno guaranteed income.

Fight for jobs

What we need is a programme ofpublic works to create decent, secureand socially useful jobs for all thoseable to work. We need an end to thecuts to hospitals and other serviceswhich just cause higherunemployment.Instead services and jobs should beavailable to match the needs ofworking class communities.

The working rights that zero-hour

contracts undercut were won throughworkers organising and fighting forbetter conditions though the tradeunions in the past. Job creation, a livingwage and decent contracts, will only bewon if the trade unions step up andorganise these workers.

Illegal practices are rife in pubs,restaurants, hospitality and call centreswhere trade union membership islower. It will take concerted effort,education, and proving themselves to

young workers from existing tradeunion organisers to unionise thesesectors. But this is what is necessary tobring a new generation into trade unionstruggle and to fight for a world where adecent job is a right not a privilege.

If you want to find out more about thetrade union in your workplace andYouth Fight for Jobs' Sick Of Your Bosscampaign get in touch:

www.youthfightforjobs.com

[email protected] Fight for Jobs protesting outside of McDonalds against zero-hour contracts

This article was drafted at the end of July for this issue of the Activist, shortlyafter Sports Direct were hailed as model employers. Since this was written ouranticipation of the poor contracts confirming our suspicions that 20,000 ofSports Direct employees are on zero hours contracts.

Much of the liberal media in the past few days have been running the story ofhow Sports Direct is paying huge bonuses in the forms of shares to 2,000staff. The company set up a bonus scheme in 2009 and those who haveworked there for the last four years will receive the bonus, worth around75,000 to anyone on a 20,000 a year salary.

In the press, this announcement is being used to make Sports Direct look likesome sort of model employer. The Mirror comments that Sports Direct chiefexecutive Dave Forsey said the scheme had helped halve the number ofworkers leaving and got them more involved. Perhaps Mr Forsey hadnt alsorealised that there is currently a recession and there has been an increase inunemployment causing many retail workers to stay put in jobs they hadpreviously assumed just to be temporary.

Like many high street retail stores, jobs have become casualised. ManySports Direct workers are on zero hours contracts, with most full time staffbeing supervisors or managers. An advert for a Casual Sales Assistantposition reveals that it gives The opportunity to work towards a full-timeposition if you decide a career in retail is for you. As the bonus scheme onlyapplies to full-time workers, then the overwhelming majority of Sports Directs23,000 employees will receive absolutely nothing.

Sports Direct Rewards Managers, not Shop-floor Workers

My working life started off atSports Direct around 2004 as a15 year-old school boy. Of course

it was minimum wage and yes itwas a zero-hour contract.

The conditions of zero-hour con-tracts leave you at the mercy ofyour employer and aren't reallymuch different to agency work.

With both you have no guaran-teed hours, no sick pay, no holi-days, and no redundancy pay.

Dare to ask for a day off or can'twork a shift that you are offeredand you soon find whatever littlework you had reduced or nothingat all the next week.

- A former Sports Direct worker
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Unemploymenthttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Trade_unionhttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Trade_unionhttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Unionhttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Youth_Fight_for_Jobshttp://www.youthfightforjobs.com/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.youthfightforjobs.com/http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Youth_Fight_for_Jobshttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Unionhttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Trade_unionhttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Trade_unionhttp://www.socialistparty.org.uk/keyword/Unemployment

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When this issue of the Activistcomes out every Usdaw mem-ber should be receiving a ballotform for the 10 yearly PoliticalFund ballot the union is re-quired to do by law. The Politi-cal Fund allows for the union tofund campaigns outside of im-mediate workplace interests,against changes in workplace

legislation and a whole range ofother issues.

Both Arena and Network havehad significant parts of themagazines devoted to winning

a Yes vote, with pull out post-ers included to display in theworkplace. Yet most of the ma-terial produced has been silenton the so-called elephant in theroom, the fact that it is from thisfund that affiliation fees to theLabour Party are paid, over3m since not-so Red Ed Mili-band was elected leader. Even

the material that mentions theLabour Party has it low down inthe priorities for winning the bal-lot.

Given the aftermath of theFalkirk West se-lection debacle,where Milibandlaunch a viciousattack on Unite,

falsely accusingthem of ballotrigging we cansee why the Us-daw leadershiparent posingthis as a keyreason to sup-port the ballot.

But Falkirk willmark the begin-ning of the endof the Labourlink. Already thes c h e m e b ywhich Usdawwas signingmost of thetrickle of mem-bers joining the

party, where theunion paid forthe first year of

membership, has been ended.A conference in the Spring willdiscuss a report into the Labour-union link, with suggestions be-ing put forward by Miliband foropen primaries and other meas-ures that will further dilute theinfluence of trade unionists overthe party they created.

Whilst there may be some whoargue we should still aim to re-claim the Labour Party, we haveto ask what there is left still toreclaim. A party whose idea ofopposition is to agree with al-most all of the governmentspolicies? A party whose council-lors that are prepared to voteagainst the cuts can be countedon a handful, rather than the

score of councils in the 80s whopledged to defy Thatcher?

The position of the Activist is

clear. Usdaw members should

vote Yes in this ballot, but we

need to organise together with

other unions to create a new

workers party to give the trade

union movement an effective

political voice instead of con-

tinually stabbing us in the back.

Activist supporters have stood

as candidates for the Trade Un-

ionist and Socialist Coalition

(TUSC) which we see as a step

in the direction of creating such

a party. We urge our readers to

support TUSC and get involved

in the preparations for the 2014local elections.

Political Fund Ballot: Vote Yes,But Fight for a New Workers Party

The cover of a recent issue of Socialism Todayasks the question that every Usdaw membershould be considering

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Almost a year ago,the National ShopStewards Network(NSSN) organiseda lobby of the TUCc o n g r e s s i nB r i g h t o n ,demanding theycall a 24 hourgeneral strike. Athousand unionactivists attended tos u c c e s s f u l l yencourage TUCdelegates to vote

for a POA motionwhich called on theTUC to consider the practicalitiesof organising a general strikeagainst the brutal austerityoffensive.

However, one year on, the TUChave done nothing. That is whythe NSSN, after an overwhelmingdecis ion at our summerconference, are marching on theTUC conference in Septemberonce again, this time to demand adate be set and the considerationof a strike is turned into reality.

Already the ante has really beenupped, with a majority of theTrade Union Councils JointC o n s u l t a t i v e C o m m i t t e esupporting the lobby. The JCC ism a d e u p o f e l e c t e d

representatives of trades councilsfrom right around the country. 5general secretaries of some ofBritains most important andmilitant unions are also speakingat the lobby.

The likes of Bob Crow of theRMT, who has spent much of thelast year putting pressure on theTUC to name a day, will be joinedby Steve Gillan of the POA (who

initially moved the motion on thestrike at last years conference)and Mark Sewotka, Ronnie

Draper and Ian Lawrence of PCS,BFAWU (Bakers union) andNAPO respectively.

Tellingly, only one of these unions(BFAWU) are affiliated to theLabour Party, who have showntime and again the last few yearsthat they do not support strikeaction and of course have shownthey are more than willing toimplement austerity themselves ifthey enter government in 2015, infact Labour councils have alreadymade a head start, wilfullycarrying through Con-Dem cutsand attacking workers, many ofwhom are in Labour affiliatedunions!

The furore over Falkirk has

shown Labours true colourstowards unions, starker than everbefore. Ed Miliband's decision inthe wake of it to rushthrough the end of tradeunion bloc affiliation tothe Labour Party at aspecial conference nextspr ing has a l l thesymbolism of Tony Blair's'Clause Four moment' in

1995.Usdaw, like the otherLabour affiliated unions,

have given millions of ourmoney to Labour overthe years and as anUsdaw member, I feel Ihave the right to ask,what have we got for it?No oppos i t ion toausterity, no support fort rade un ions , noalternative for workers.

Our unions should beleading the fight backagainst attacks onworking class people. I

hope at the TUC generalcouncil meeting that theRMT and their allies who havedeclared that a general strike callis a golden opportunity to reachout to working people, win theargument and that Usdaw andother strike nay sayers listen totheir members and join the fightback in earnest.

The upcoming period is the

perfect time for this, withteachers, fire-fighters, postmenand others already taking strikeaction, it isnt difficult to co-ordinate these strikes to takeplace at the same time. It is thenthe duty of the likes Unison, Uniteand Usdaw to join in and fight thisgovernment with a 24 hourgeneral strike, the first since1926. Come and join the march

on the TUC conference to make ithappen!



Rally & lobby of TUC takes place onSunday 8th September, Hardy Suite,

Hermitage Hotel, Exter Rd, Bournemouth12noon-3pm - Speakers include:

Mark Serwotka, PCS General Secretary;Bob Crow, RMT General Secretary; and 3other trade union General Secretaries

See www.shopstewards.net for info

Lobby the TUC for a General Strike against austerity

Last years NSSN lobby of the TUC Congress in Brighton

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