- Conference
- 2015 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 4 September 2014
- Decision
- Carried
Zero hours contracts are slowly edging into mainstream local government and other services and are being routinely used as cheaper alternative to permanent contracts. A good example of this appalling practice is within Register Offices, which is an occupation predominately staffed by women.
This practice involves saving money on staffing as zero hours contracts have no ‘on-costs’:
1) No sickness is payable to zero hours contracts – if you don’t work you don’t get paid.
2) Reduced holiday pay costs – only need pay the bare minimum of 1/13 premium to cover holiday as set by the EU
3) No pension costs to the Employer – therefore no right to a pension for the Employee
Conference calls upon the National Women’s Committee to investigate the feasibility of a UNISON survey to discover how many zero hours contracts are being used in public services such as Local Government, NHS, Probation Service, Police and others so as to put pressure on Government to halt the practice.