Money Box Live: Zero-Hours Contracts
Money Box
BBC
4.2 • 825 Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2018
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
New figures show a rise in contracts that do not guarantee a minimum number of hours. Whether you are a worker or an employer, how does this kind of arrangement work for you?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In Northern Ireland, from the late 70s to the early 90s, the IRA killed over 40 alleged informers. |
| 0:08.0 | But the man who often found, tortured and sometimes killed these people on behalf of the IRA |
| 0:12.0 | was himself an informer, a secret British army agent with the codename Stakeknife. |
| 0:18.0 | Who gets to play God? And why me? Why my family? When lies are still being told to this day, |
| 0:24.0 | who do you believe? I wouldn't even know where to start and I'm with the IRA. |
| 0:28.5 | Steakknife. Listen first on BBC Sounds. This is the BBC. |
| 0:36.7 | Welcome to the download of Moneybox Live, the programme about your money, and today it is |
| 0:41.5 | all about the contentious issue of zero-hour contracts. Many thanks, good afternoon. The term |
| 0:47.7 | zero-hours contract has exploded onto the news pages in the past few years, described by some as |
| 0:53.8 | the cheap way of exploiting |
| 0:55.2 | a powerless section of the workforce, by others, as an essential part of the modern gig economy |
| 1:00.5 | which allows industry the flexibility it needs to provide the growth the country needs. |
| 1:06.2 | Politicians have raised various amounts of mixed concern and support for them. |
| 1:10.0 | Last year, Theresa May ruled out banning zero-hours contracts |
| 1:13.4 | after a review into working practising |
| 1:16.0 | claiming that to do so would harm more people than it would help. |
| 1:20.4 | The Lib Dem leader, Vince Cable, said he was concerned about the contracts |
| 1:23.8 | and launched an investigation, but eventually concluded that there was a place for them. |
| 1:28.6 | However, Labour's 2017 General Election Manifesto committed to ban zero-hours contracts |
| 1:34.2 | so that, in the manifesto's words, every worker gets a guaranteed number of hours each week. |
| 1:40.6 | Well, there are about a million people on zero-hour contracts, many of them low-paid, so it remains an issue of concern to many. |
| 1:49.9 | So what are your rights if you're on one of these contracts? Are they good for workers as well as employers? |
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