Time to clean up the dirty gig economy

YOU can see the gig economy everywhere but in the true statistics. The driver dropping off a package, the person behind the bar or the barista making your coffee, the hotel staff making up your bed or your bill, they will almost certainly be part of it.

The best guesstimate is that one worker in 10 is involved. But this does not begin to chart the extent of it, or the exploitation and litany of outrages it covers.

People being paid cash in hand, tax avoided, young women sexually assaulted and afraid to complain because they need the job, others bullied or brought to the brink of breakdown through irregular hours, threats and insecurity over whether they will be working next day, next week or at all.

It is overwhelmingly the young and the poorest, the most vulnerable who make up the numbers. Students who need to earn to carry them through to finish their degrees, single mothers, people on benefits who are directed, compelled, to take these jobs.

Flexibility in hours and shift patterns can benefit both employer and employee, but only where mutually agreed, and basic rights on sickness pay, statutory holidays and the minimum wage written into a contract.

Statutory agencies also need to ensure that claimants are sent to jobs that fit these criteria, be they multinational companies or the local pub, and not to rogue employers.

These are basic rights, all too often unenforced. Today we reveal the misery and exploitation.

Tomorrow, and in future, political parties and governments must ensure they are banished to the past.