Hundreds of thousands of UK workers are trapped in jobs so insecure they’re unable to plan childcare or budget for their weekly shop – they are on Zero Hours contracts (ZHC).

AT CCCG the majority of Hourly Paid staff, be they Lecturers, LSA’s or Business Support staff are on ZHCs. These allow employers to cut costs by hiring staff with no guarantee of work, hours or pay. Zero hours employers are not obliged to provide employees with redundancy pay, holiday pay, sick pay, or a pension scheme.

Employers who use ZHCs claim they offer flexibility and choice. The reality is that there is no choice for these workers. For many people a zero-hours job is their only choice for work, despite how hard it is to make end meet on a zero-hours contract. From shift patterns that change every week to hours cut at the last minute, planning your life on a ZHC is often a nightmare. There is no job security, so employees cannot get mortgages or loans. Work can be cancelled after you have turned up to work. Irregular hours mean that some weeks you might earn nothing.

That’s why UCU and the TUC is calling for an outright ban on zero-hours contracts. They are seen more widely by society as a very poor and unequal contract. An educational establishment that attempts to buck this trend, especially one like CCCG which promotes itself as a progressive employer, that has the best working conditions and is a workplace that staff are happy to belong to, does not fit well.

We call upon CCCG to:

1. END the widespread use of Zero Hours contracts

2. END no guaranteed minimum hours

3. END hours being offered only at the beginning of each term

We would like to see:

1. For ALL hourly paid staff timetabled for at least one whole term, a contract of employment offering the same terms and conditions of service, including benefits to hourly paid workers as are offered to permanent employees.

2. Cumulative incremental pay progression applied in the same way as for comparable permanent employees (as recommended in the Joint Agreement between AoC & UCU on the employment of part-time employees – section 2.2).

3. HPS to be put onto a variable contract with a minimum ‘ceiling’ hours.

We believe this would have a significant, positive impact on the organisation’s ability to appoint and retain skilled and experienced staff, who are more committed and motivated due to improved job security.