CLAIM VS REALITY
YESTERDAY, opening up yet another front in his war on business, Ed Miliband pledged a Labour Government would ‘end the exploitation of zero-hours contracts’. Here. JAMES SLACK sorts the Labour leader’s emotive claims about the contracts from the very different reality.
CLAIM: We have an epidemic of zero-hours contracts in our country.
REALITY: According to the Office for National Statistics, between October and December last year a total of 697,000 people said they were employed on zero - hours contracts in their main job. This represents only 2.3 per cent of people in employment – or one in every 43 workers. This hardly constitutes an epidemic.
CLAIM: There has been a 0 per cent increase in the last year alone.
REALITY: It is true the number of people
reporting they were on a zero -hours contract rose by 110,000 in the year to December 2014, but the ONS says the two sets of figures are not comparable. In some cases, they will have been on the contracts for years but only just become aware of the fact… because Miliband had spent so much time talking about them. Labour was warned by statisticians not to use the figures – but carried on regardless.
CLAIM: Zero-hours contracts ‘undermine hard work, undermining living standards, undermining family life’.
REALITY: Far from inflicting untold mis - ery on the majority of workers, by making it impossible for them to make ends meet, 66 per cent said they did not want to work more hours. Only one in ten on zero-hours contracts said they would like a different job. The average number of hours worked was 22.6 per week. Almost one in five were in full-time education, which would make it hard for them to work any more hours even if they wished to.
CLAIM: The Tories won’t end the exploitation of zero-hours contracts. We will.
REALITY: Last June the Conservative-led
Government took action to ban so-called exclusivity deals which prevented people on zero -hours contracts from working elsewhere. Labour’s record, by contrast, is nothing to boast about: T ony Blair promised in 1995 to ban them after it emerged they were used in UK fast food chains but his government failed to act in three terms in power.
CLAIM: If it’s not good enough for us, it’s not good enough for you. One rule for all.
REALITY: Mr Miliband said he could not survive on one of the contracts – but plenty employed by Labour councils and officials have to do so. Some 68 Labour MPs are reported to have employed staff on the contracts over the last two years, including Ed Balls, Mr Miliband’s parlia - mentary bag carrier K aren Buck and his election chief Lucy P owell. Meanwhile, Freedom of Information requests show Labour-run town halls are responsible for 21,798 of the contracts – including 300 in Doncaster, where the Labour leader is seeking re-election as the local MP.
CLAIM: The Conservatives believe by looking after a few big firms and individuals at the top, everyone else will be OK.
REALITY: It’s by no means only big business that appreciates the flexibility the contracts can provide. A survey of employers by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that a third of voluntary sector organisations used zero -hours contracts, along with a quarter of public sector employers. The figure for private firms – once again the target for an attack by Mr Miliband – was only 17 per cent.
PS: Even the ever-meddling EU does not object to zero -hours contracts. Despite intense lobbying by Labour MEPs and the party’s trade union paymasters, Brussels has opted to stay out of the row . It insists only that workers should not work more hours than permitted by the Working Time Directive and should be entitled to any holiday rights they have accrued.