Zero-hours contracts are hated by many worker. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Observer

Barbara Ellen (“Zero-hours jobs stink – whatever you call them”, Comment) powerfully exposes the tyranny of zero-hours contracts, highlighting the Orwellian descriptions now favoured by Iain Duncan Smith and Esther McVey.

The Tory promise to outlaw the use of exclusive zero-hours contracts is welcome but fails to remove the pay and job insecurity that characterise their use.

Labour displays a more robust approach by proposing that anyone working “regular hours for more than 12 weeks will have a right to a regular contract”.

As such, the possibility is still left open to an employer to sack someone at the 11th week of a contract. Labour also unequivocally state that they will “ban exploitative zero-hours contracts”. Emphatically right.

Michael Somerton

Hull

Who is doing the flexing and who is being flexed? “Flexibility” is an ambiguous word exploited to disguise two totally different situations.

Yes, there are cases when an employee can choose their hours around other demands on their time such as children or studies.

This sort of option is often available to professional specialists who can dictate their own terms.

However, this situation should not be confused with zero-hours workers who have no control over their weekly incomes.

They have to bend over backwards to accommodate the employer’s varying demands, sometimes due to the market but often due to lack of planning. These workers cannot conceive of taking on a mortgage and they struggle to commit to paying monthly rent, because no one will commit to them.

Posted online

Freedom of movement has been used by free-market capitalism to undercut wages in this country by recruiting from abroad.

But freedom of movement does not cause wages to be undercut – this is, rather, a choice on the part of employers, who can either pay a decent wage that local workers can actually live on or a minimum wage that only will have value when sent as remittances abroad. If the current and previous governments had done more to enforce employers’ paying a living wage, open wage-undercutting would not have been as severe (illegal undercutting would of course occur but again adequate enforcement and penalisation could deal with this problem).

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Barbara Ellen addresses the use of Orwellian newspeak in our time but failed to hit on the most accurate (ie not Orwellian) sobriquet for this vile invention: zero-hours contracts are truly “part-time unemployment”.

Jim Grove

Cowbridge

Vale of Glamorgan

Office — Zero-hours contracts have become increasingly popular in the UK

Ed Miliband has vowed that a Labour government would give employees on "exploitative" zero-hours contracts the legal right to a regular contract after they have worked 12 weeks of regular hours.

Q: What are zero-hours contracts?

A: Zero-hours contracts, or casual contracts, allow employers to hire staff with no guarantee of work.

They mean employees work only when they are needed by employers, often at short notice. Their pay depends on how many hours they work.

Some zero-hours contracts require workers to take the shifts they are offered, while others do not.

Sick pay is often not included, although holiday pay should be, in line with working time regulations.

Q: Who is on them?

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) says that 697,000 people were employed on zero-hours contracts for their main job between October and December 2014, based on figures from the Labour Force Survey. That represents 2.3% of the UK workforce.

This figure is higher than the figure of 586,000 (1.9% of people in employment) reported for the same period in 2013. The ONS said it was unclear how much of the rise was due to greater recognition of the term "zero-hours contracts", rather than new contracts being offered.

The number of contracts that do not guarantee a minimum number of hours was 1.8 million as of August 2014. That was 400,000 more than the previous estimate for January 2014.

The ONS said the differences in the two totals could reflect seasonal factors, because they cover different times of the year.

A survey of employers by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found that a third of voluntary sector organisations used zero-hours contracts, along with a quarter of public sector employers and 17% of private sector firms.

A high proportion of staff at companies including retailer Sports Direct, pub chain JD Wetherspoon and cinema operator Cineworld are on zero-hours contracts. They are also used by other employers, including a number of London councils and Buckingham Palace.

Q: Why are they controversial?

A: There is concern that zero-hours contracts do not offer enough financial stability and security.

The ONS found that employees on such a contract worked an average of 25 hours a week.

However, about a third of those on zero-hours contracts want more hours - mostly in their current job - compared with just 10% of other people in employment.

The CIPD research found that 16% of zero-hours workers said their employer often failed to provide them with sufficient hours each week.

The ONS said that zero-hours workers were more likely to be women or in full-time education and aged under 25 or over 65.

Employees on zero-hours contracts also do not have the same employment rights as those on traditional contracts, and critics are concerned that the contracts are being used to avoid employers' responsibilities to employees.

The CIPD warned that employers may also take advantage of zero-hours contracts by using them as a management tool - offering more hours to favoured employees and fewer to those less valued.

Q: Why do employers use them?

Employers say zero-hours contracts allow them to take on staff in response to fluctuating demand for their services, in sectors such as tourism and hospitality.

Employers also say that many workers appreciate the flexibility that a zero-hours contract gives them. Some 38% of workers in the CIPD research described themselves as employed full-time, working 30 hours or more a week, despite being on zero hours.

Michael Burd, joint head of employment at the law firm Lewis Silkin, says the majority of employers use zero-hour contracts, not to avoid giving employees their rights, but to avoid paying fixed overheads and give them flexibility over their workforce.

He points out that this flexibility is envied by employers in struggling economies such as Spain and Greece, where potential costs may dissuade employers from taking on staff.

The Institute of Directors has voiced concern about Labour's proposed policy, saying the changes would be unnecessary and potentially damaging.

Christian May, head of communications and campaigns, said: "Limiting the use of a zero-hours contract to just 12 weeks would apply rigid controls on an important element of our flexible labour market. They are used by a little over 2% of workers, which can hardly be described as an epidemic. Nobody supports the misuse of these contracts, but demonising and ultimately outlawing them will simply risk jobs."

Simon Rice-Birchall, partner at law firm Eversheds, said it was not clear how the proposed new right would apply, given that Labour refers to "employees" rather than "workers".

"Many staff on zero-hours contracts are workers and do not have full employment status. In addition, depending how the change in the law is drafted, there is a risk that some employers may simply offer contracts with minimal fixed hours to limit its impact," he said.

Zero-hours contracts just the tip of the iceberg for low-paid and insecure jobs, says the TUC

Zero-hours contracts are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to low-paid and insecure jobs, according to new analysis published today (Sunday) by the TUC.

The analysis shows that in addition to the 700,000 workers who report being on zero-hours contracts, there are another 820,000 UK employees who report being underemployed on between 0 and 19 hours a week.

The TUC says that while zero-hours contracts have dominated the media headlines, short hours-contracts, along with other forms of insecure work, are also blighting the lives of many workers.

Underemployed short-hours workers are typically paid a much lower hourly rate than other employees. The average hourly wage for a short-hours worker on fewer than 20 hours a week is £8.40 an hour, compared to £13.20 an hour for all employees.

The TUC says that short-hours contracts, which can guarantee as little as one hour a week, can allow employers to get out of paying national insurance contributions.

The average underemployed short-hours worker would have to work more than 18 hours a week for their employer to start having to pay national insurance for their employment.

The TUC says that like zero-hours workers, many short-hours workers don’t know how many shifts they will get each week and often have to compete with colleagues for extra hours.

Women are particularly at risk of becoming trapped on short-hour contracts, says the TUC. They account for nearly three-quarters (71.5 per cent) of underemployed employees on short-hours contracts.

Retail is the worst affected sector. Nearly a third (29 per cent) of underemployed short-hour workers are employed in supermarkets, shops, warehouses and garages – nearly 250,000 people.

Education (16 per cent), accommodation and food services (14 per cent) and health and social care (12 per cent) also account for large shares.

The growth in low-paid, insecure jobs since the crash has been bad for workers and the public finances, says the TUC, with taxpayers having to subsidise poverty pay through tax credits.

The TUC says that short-hour and zero-hours contracts, along with low-paid and bogus self-employment, have reduced tax revenues and are dragging down UK productivity.

Self-employment has accounted for nearly a third (31 per cent) of the net rise in employment since 2010. Figures published last summer by the Office for National Statistics show that average earnings for self-employed workers have fallen by 22 per cent since 2008/09.

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Zero-hours contracts are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to low-paid, insecure work.

“Hundreds of thousands of other workers find themselves trapped on short-hours contracts that simply do not guarantee enough hours for them to make ends meet.

“Like zero-hours contracts, short-hour contracts give too much power to the employer. Bosses have an incentive to offer low wages and fewer hours to get out of paying national insurance.

“Without more decent jobs, people will continue to have to survive off scraps of work and UK productivity will continue to tank.”

Viewers took to Twitter to discuss the episode, which received over 2 million viewers. Staff told the documentary makers that they lived in fear of losing their jobs due to a ‘six strikes and you’re out’ disciplinary system where long toilet breaks, excessive chatting and sick leave is a punishable offence, according to Channel 4.

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner said the way Sports Direct operates is like a "throw-back to the Victorian era".

"Workers on zero hours contracts at Sports Direct’s Shirebrook site are being shamefully exploited and living in daily fear of losing their job.