Apologies for the link, but it appears that rlMike Ashley's Sports Direct is 'employing' some 20,000 staff on zero-hours contractsrl.

This isn't a struggling independent company, but a rather larger concern. Flexibility is one thing, but zero-hours contracts are nothing but exploitation, and don't benefit the wider economy or the majority of individuals who find themselves in such a working situation.

Surely they should be made illegal?

Should be made illegal?
Surely not, I mean Cameron says that EU employment law is too inflexible.

Not necessarily defending this, but I will just comment on when I worked for JJB Sports during my college years (a few years back, I admit):

A good 80-90% of the staff easily were in the same or similar boat as me. When I was at the main Hull store there were probably a rotating 40-50 members of staff, including 1 manager, 1 assistant manager, 2 area supervisors, and a few other full-timers operating the tills etc. The rest was pretty much all college/university students working around their lectures/study time. Not having set hours or even having to come in if we didn't want suited most of us fine, as did being able to pick up extra hours if we were free from time to time and during the holiday periods.

IMO they're like many things, not inherently a problem, but open to abuse. I don't think you should ban things on that basis, but they do need policing better.

Well it wasn't just when you felt like on a whim.

What I meant was, nobody had fixed hours they had to do every week, but likewise nor were they guaranteed any hours, either. Rotas were done for about 4 weeks at a time by the manager. If anyone wanted the time off they were free to swap with another member of staff so long as management were informed and it was somebody who could do the same job.

Shops also 'lent' staff to each other if necessary.

I can see this being of benefit to, as you suggest, students, but my prime concern is with the majority of those who are not students, who are employed on such contracts 'full time', so to speak, as their living.

As the article says, it's happening increasingly in the public services, particularly in the hugely privatised homecare area. This is just one aspect of the increasing casualisation of that sector, and it's not only not good for someone working in that way, but it's also not good for those they are supposed to be caring for.

Additionally, in the hunt both to cut costs and make a profit in that area, there's also a question of homecare workers increasingly only being given 15 minutes (or even less) to see each person they must visit, which is quite clearly not enough if someone needs help getting up and dressing, for instance, or in preparing food.

Those homecare wallahs can just make it up in their expense account surely?

Zero hour contracts aren't a sudden surprise to anyone though are they?
It's been plain to see this is the way we've been heading for years, the back door has been left well and truly open.
The crime is that the labor movement and TUC haven't been able to effectively combat it as workers rights have been diminished and been increasingly eroded over the last three decades..

I agree, it definitely needs to be policed well as I said. I was simply saying that I wouldn't be too quick to assume Sports Direct are being hugely exploitative, as if it is anything like when I used to work in that area then the workforce is largely skewed towards students, so the 90% may well not be that unusual.

Simple maths from that piece says that there is an average of 56 members of staff at every Sports Direct shop. I find that massively hard to believe without it being lots of people effectively 'job-sharing' in the way we used to.

rlNow available if you work at Buck House, Cineworld and any of the Tate galleries.rl

The Guardian seems to think they're ok too.

rlhttp://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/jul/30/zero-hours-contracts-case-studiesrl

The [iGuardian[/i being hypocritical does not change the issue.

Please do try harder in your new incarnation.

It's a good job the Unions are still strong, isn't it?