Trade union calls for 'zero hours' contracts to be outlawed
A trade union is today calling on the Government to outlaw so-called "zero-hours" contracts.
A study on the prevalence of 'zero hour' contracts among Irish employers and their impact on employees is being presented to an Oireachtas Jobs Committee later today.
It has found that some employers are using these "if and when" arrangements to avoid paying low-hour workers their minimum entitlements.
John Douglas from the Mandate trade union said that these contracts put workers in a precarious position.
"An 'if and when' contract is a contract that doesn't guarantee you any minimum number of hours," he said.
"So you have workers who don't know whether they're going to get 10 hours a week or 40 hours a week - and it'll vary up and down from week to week depending on circumstances and depending on the attitude of local managers."
The review has also found that low-hour working agreements are not as frequent as had been anticipated, however..
"The team in UL would have consulted extensively when they were researching this," said Oireachtas Jobs Committee chair Marcella Corcoran Kennedy.
"They would have consulted with unions and lawyers, individuals, other academics - so a very broad amount of research was done.
"They then came up with their findings, and made recommendations as part of the very extensive report that they did.
"This of course will be presented to Government as well."
