Owen Smith on Zero Hours Contracts

Owen Smith has some interesting ideas about Zero Hour Contracts, please see the video below. 

As of December 2014, the Office for National Statistics estimated that there were around 700,000 workers on zero-hours contracts, with 1.8m such contracts (as some people may have more than one contract) with a further 1.3m where no hours were worked.

Under UK law a distinction is drawn between a mere "worker" and an "employee," an employee having more legal rights than a worker.  Whether a person working under a zero-hour contract is an employee or a worker can be uncertain; however, even in cases where the plain text of the zero-hour contract designates the person as a "worker" courts have inferred an employment relationship based on the mutuality of obligation between employer and employee.

Thus, when deciding whether a zero-hours contract constitutes a contract of employment, conferring employee status, the wording of the contract will not be determinative of whether there is, in practice, a mutuality of obligation. The tribunal will look closely at the reality of the agreement. If the reality is that there is a pattern of regular work which is regularly accepted, the tribunal may deem the contract to be one of employment.