Zero hours contracts

fullfact.org/factcheck/economy/food_bank_number-40853

fullfact.org/article/zero_hour_contracts-38391

FlicketyB I totally agree with you.

Ah. I didnt read to the very end of The Trussel Trust link. My mistake.

soon

It is possibly the figure is not as at first perceived.

The problem in question is the food bank records show the foot fall, number of food parcels given out. The number would change if there was a strict record kept of the actual individual user and how many repeat visits they make but that does not happen so the figures are subjective.

I was surprised to see The Trussel Trust asks for a donation of £1.500 to an organisation wanting you to set up a Trussel Trust Food Bank. I appreciate there are many aspects that need paying for but I found that a bit strange for a charity to do, I know some won't.

The 1st food bank was established a the US in 1967. Obviously food banks are known to be in existence worldwide with France being the 1st European country to establish one. Even the likes of Germany has seen a rise in their numbers since the 2007/2008 financial crash.

I think that it is safe to assume that there are both sorts of people who use foodbanks.
1 million is a huge number.

I should imagine that greens and meat are not given out due to storage issues at a foodbank.

Our local food bank has an online list of items required.

Apparently they don't want any more tinned soup or tuna!

They want disposable nappies, toilet rolls, tissues and washing powder, plus things like stewed steak, tinned potatoes, jam and biscuits.

1) Obesity and poverty go together. When I was 5 we moved from London to Carlisle. In the area we lived in, a main road divided an area of comfortable owner-occupied houses from tiny terraces, mostly rented. This was the first time I had seen really fate women. At some point I asked my mother why we saw so many fat women when we went to the shops. Her answer was: 'When money is tight, first the men get fed, then the children and the women live on bread, marge and sugar. This makes them fat.

Families living in poverty buy a lot of very cheap very poor quality take-away food. Lots of chips and buns because they are cheapest and filling, lots of very poor quality protein cooked in indeterminate cooking oil. No wonder they are fat. The further up the social scale you move the smaller the proportion of overweight people.

2) Many of those going to Food Banks should be on benefits, have applied for benefits but for a range of reasons there application has been disappeared into the maw of the DWP and failed to be properly processed so the applicants are left without funds so have no money to buy food.

3) I understand that many on zero hours contracts are among those loss in this morass as it the DWP and the benefit system is institutionally incapable of dealing with any circumstance where income is uncertain and variable. It can only deal with steady state incomes, but the poorer you are the more likely you are to have an uncertain and variable income.

We all have a tendency to rationalise unpleasant facts out of existence when the problem does not affect us. Many people would rather rationalise the existence of Food Banks by saying that recipients are cheating, or spending their money on other (less worthy, possible decadent and disapproved items) or just incompetent rather than admit that in this country now there are many families and individuals who despite their best efforts and proper efforts are so poor they cannot feed themselves or their families. This is why I donate to my local food bank every week.

I have certainly heard a lot of people express those views too ethel!

I have not been online for a week and have read your comments. Some are a bit cynical but zero hours works for me. I only have myself to cater for and if I have less hours I just spend less and 'cut my coat according to my cloth' to use an old fashioned expression.

Someone mentioned putting food on the table, well, if a family has the breadwinner on zero hours they would get benefits if there was no work. They would probably get tax credits too, I did when my DD was small.

No one should have problems with food shopping. The trouble is that today 'poverty' is taken to mean that many consider themselves poor when they cannot afford a 50inch tv. There are no kids running barefoot or with elbows out of jumpers nowadays, no one goes without cigarettes/booze these days. Look at the obesity epidemic, how does that match with food banks. During WW2 on rationing few people were fat. Having seen the rubbish food that foodbanks give to people I wonder where their brains are. They seem to give out pot noodles and other dried stuff. Why can they give out greens and fresh meat etc.

Finally how come those not working for whatever reason don't seem to spend time cooking. When I was on benefit I made good dinners for my DD because I had the time. I see many kids running into the garden with a piece of pizza in their hands. What wrong with a good family meal at the table.

No but this is an interesting article, showing that 22% are due to low income, which presumably includes those on zero hours contracts.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/almost-50-of-referrals-to-food-banks-in-the-uk-are-due-to-issues-with-the-welfare-system-9910973.html

I don't know, durhamjen. Do you?

Just heard on Newsnight that the number of people using food banks will reach a million this week. How many of those are on zero hours contracts?

ethelbags From the This is Money website:

"This [zero hours] type of contract would almost certainly affect your ability to gain confidence of a lender to secure a mortgage on a property.

"Let’s say you have no financial worries. You’ve been working 40 or 50 hours a week and you have been for years so your financial situation is good. No missed payments and no red marks on your credit report.


"You’ve saved hard for a deposit and decided the time is right to move out of rented accommodation and buy something of your own.

"Except, when you get to the bank you’re told they won’t give you a mortgage or a loan. Yes, they can see that you have the deposit and you’ve never missed a payment in your life but the problem is… you have a zero-hour contract.

"Those hours you’re working could dry up tomorrow and then how will you make the repayments? This makes grim reading for you and it may be time to reassess employment opportunities with a view to a more secure position."

I don't know when you bought your home but you previously said that you did so under the Right to Buy scheme - so presumably you got a reasonable discount. Provided the valuation placed on the property is considerably higher than the amount owing in mortgage, I think that may be acceptable to some lenders because, should you fall behind with repayments, they can re-possess your home, sell it and recoup what they are owed. I believe also that people who are considered to be a "higher risk" may also have to get a guarantor, pay some sort of indemnity insurance and/or pay a higher rate of interest.

A zero hours contract is referred to as having "no mutuality of obligation" - that is to say that the employer has no obligation to offer a minimum number of hours' work and the "worker" (people on zero hours contracts are not defined as "employees") has - in theory - no obligation to work the hours offered. In reality, though, workers have found that if they refuse to work the hours requested - even if they have received very little notice, have had to spend time and money travelling to get to work and are only required for 3 or 4 hours - it affects their chances of being offered future work. There is therefore a significant imbalance of power, weighted in favour of the employer.

Even if someone on a zero hours contract has worked for several years for an employer, they are not entitled to a written notice of terms and conditions of their employment and no statutory minimum notice period.

It is true that students and retired people may find this arrangement suits them, but for those people who have rent and bills to pay and no other means of financial support it must be very stressful.

When I was on zero hours there was a lady that did extra hours for free/voluntary and if there were any extra hrs she would always be asked in. Eventually she was offered a perm job

ethelt you obviously have an excellent employer. The big drawback to zero hours contracts is that workers are entirely at the mercy of the employer, in spite of having a contract. They have employment rights but the employer can simply not offer them work. I think exclusive contracts are no longer legal, but if workers turn down work, the employer may stop offering any. You can't judge the system based on your personal experience.

My DD and her other half are both on contracted hours, she has a university degree, two children, pay their rent on time (as far as I know) but have trashed the lovely two bed flat that they have and the furniture inside it too (they have let the eldest boy wreck the leather settee which is the landlady's). The landlady lives in London and she will have a fit when she sees it, but I reckon they will have done a runner by then. I have not brought her up this way, I have no idea how she has got like this. But just because on paper they looked responsible doesn't necessarily make them so.

I would give this girl a short contract and then if she didn't pay, you could ask her to leave. Could you give her a month to month contract?

You're all heart, ethel.

www.citizensuk.org/

While you continue to think that's okay, we are prpping up companies like Next and Tesco, who continue to pay peanuts to their workers and loads of money to their shareholders.
I do not wish to live in that sort of society.

zero hours "means that on summers days you can drive to the country and have a picnic or sit in the garden" - tell that to the people struggling to put food on the table, never mind run a car!

I have worked on lots of other jobs and have a part time self employed job, being zero hours means you don't have to accept work if you don't want to, it means that on summers days you can drive to the country and have a picnic or sit in the garden, the downside is that you may have to do extra hours on a weekend to make up but I like the variety, yes I would love a regular income but I am now used to this lifestyle and it suits many of us.

It was the uncertainty of work that I could not cope with after 43 years of contractual employment. I always got as much work as I needed but never certain.

There is quite a lot of paperwork involved in being self-employed, especially if you are VAT registered.

When, the universal credit is supposed to sort out that problem. Unfortunately, when it comes in, it is paid monthly in arrears, so many people have to get an emergency loan for the first month.

Well done, absent.
When my husband and I sold the guest house in York, we rented two different bungalows in two different place for six months each.
We had no references, because we had not rented for a long time, and we had new bank accounts. My husband was on benefits.
We were lucky because we had enough money to pay six months rent in advance for the first rental and the second was the same landlady as our son. I do not know what we would have done if we had not made any money on selling the guest house.

True, soontobe, true. . .

I also hope it works out absent, frankly don't see the difference from your point of view from freelance or even waged but unreliable. If you like the sound of the tenant, go with your instinct. I suppose one could always ask for a guarantor if one had reservations.