Zero Hours

[BlasterBates]

look at those goalposts go!

slightly different thing, note the majority of 'Bank' employees are not medical they are administrative / support. The Medical are locum status.

I actually read the BBC article. Surely everyone else who read it would have seen the following:

So critically, the employer's guaranteed ability to deliver the work disappears because the individual is not obliged to work.

Casual contracts are a special case of Zero Hours contracts. But they are quite different from MacDonalds contracts.

So the goal posts haven't moved, it's just now I think the penny has dropped

Debating on whether Doctors will be put on MacDonalds style contracts is pointless because it isn't happening.

But we can debate about casual zero hour contracts.

[vetran]

The article talks about Zero hours contracts, but the NHS are not using Zero Hour contracts they're using Casual Hour contracts. A Nurse explains:

look at those goalposts go!

slightly different thing, note the majority of 'Bank' employees are not medical they are administrative / support. The Medical are locum status.

[BlasterBates]

The article talks about Zero hours contracts, but the NHS are not using Zero Hour contracts they're using Casual Hour contracts. A Nurse explains:

don’t think this is right. I have been a bank nurse in UBHT (albeit some time ago). Bank is a casual contract, not a zero hours contract as you define it. I think they have misinterpreted your question.
From the UBHT website:
‘UHBristol has a ‘bank’ of temporary staff. It works in the same way as a temporary employment agency. The bank offers additional and flexible working to existing employees and people who want to work on a temporary/casual basis. Bank employees include nurses and midwives, administrative and clerical roles such as ward clerks, secretaries and outpatient clerks, and ancillary staff, such as porters, cleaners and catering staff.’
Honorary contracts are used for those on clinical placements whilst in training or research, so although they are technically zero hours, they are still not as defined.

Staggering: zero-hours contracts in the NHS | skwalker1964

In a Casual Hour contract you are not obliged to work when requested.

Of course one may criticise it but it isn't the same as a Zero Hours Contract where you're forced to sit at home waiting for a call earnng nothing. The BBC article states Zero Hours Contracts and then talks about Casual Hours Contracts, which is confirmed by the Nurse on the forum.

I personally would welcome a casual hours contract.

[vetran]

Isn't a normal contracting gig (which is for highly skilled, highly [over]paid workers) done on a zero-hours basis? Or is there a special part to it the BBC don't mention?

yes its a contract for service. They are an employee for pay scales and discipline, a contractor for getting paid and turning up probably without any enhancement in hourly rate.

[vetran]

Yes but the discussion is about highly skilled staff. You can shaft a McDonalds employee but not a Doctor.

Doctors will negotiate a contract for services, many probably already have. Zero hour contracts give employers too many rights for highly skilled in demand staff.

Also the member of staff will be made responsible for their own training (that would be considered down time) so they would slowly be deskilled. The NHS would end up with a bunch of non english speaking just qualified cardiologists with no skills while BUPA will have the highly trained ones.

[d000hg]

Zero hours contracts ... are inextricably linked with low-paid jobs, a lack of employment rights and only being paid for the work you actually do. ... However, zero hours contracts have rarely been used for highly skilled white collar staff. They are normally restricted to low-skilled jobs, such as catering, cleaning and security.

Isn't a normal contracting gig (which is for highly skilled, highly [over]paid workers) done on a zero-hours basis? Or is there a special part to it the BBC don't mention?

[BlasterBates]

Yes but the discussion is about highly skilled staff. You can shaft a McDonalds employee but not a Doctor. It makes sense. Having Doctors work where they're needed rather than hanging around the hospital not doing very much because the Hispital would like to offer a Cardiology service isn't very efficient. Much better to have pools of Doctors working where they're needed. If anything it's the Doctors who shaft the NHS not the other way round. Doctors yield a lot of power because they're experts you can't just push around.

Of course it's true that senor Doctors shaft junior Doctors but then the junior Doctors look forward to shafting when they get older. Senior Doctors use their positions in the NHS as way to pull private practice.

[vetran]

Intellectual property, disclosure and availability will all be imposed by employer, these are aimed at low skill workers without access to decent legal advice.

Whether they have the right to do so is a moot point, the reality is that its about shafting low paid employees.

You might be able to get a contract for services from multiple customers, these guys are being given a contract for service with one employer without any uplift in rate.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

A so called zero hours contract does not necessarily mean that individuals do not have employment rights, it depends on what happens in practise and whether or not there is continuity of employment. There was a recent employment tribunal (pulse healthcare v something) where 4 care workers were working under a zero hours contract but they were found to have been unfairly dismissed and they were considered to have been employed under a contract of employment

[BlasterBates]

doesn't work that way because in each contract they specifically restrict your right to work for anyone else. These contracts aren't aimed at your Gynaecologist they are for cleaners & nurses limiting their work options without paying them anything.

The fact that Maccy D's and similar spearheaded this style of contract should ring alarm bells.

Not according to the article:

The individual's guaranteed 40-hour week is gone. He or she is only paid for the hours actually worked. Also, the employer's guaranteed access to the individual is gone - as they do not even have to turn up to work.

So critically, the employer's guaranteed ability to deliver the work disappears because the individual is not obliged to work. The employer cannot guarantee that the individual will do the work. This is why zero hours contracts normally go hand-in-hand with "banks" of employees, so that if one individual says no, there will always be someone else on hand to say yes.

The NHS allows its medical staff to do private practice, so if they're not obliged to work they can do private practice.

[vetran]

I would prefer to have several 0 hour contracts and then work when I wanted.

Check the internet in the morning and go to work when I feel like it.

Why not.

doesn't work that way because in each contract they specifically restrict your right to work for anyone else. These contracts aren't aimed at your Gynaecologist they are for cleaners & nurses limiting their work options without paying them anything.

The fact that Maccy D's and similar spearheaded this style of contract should ring alarm bells.

[cojak]

I'd like that but I suspect that's not what employers want, as they want you to fit in with them, not the other way around. I would imagine that they'ed have something in their contracts stating that you must be exclusively assigned to them (at their beck and call) - wanting their cake and eating it...

Isn't this what scuppered G4S for the Olympics?

[BlasterBates]

I would prefer to have several 0 hour contracts and then work when I wanted.

Check the internet in the morning and go to work when I feel like it.

Why not.

[vetran]

The aim of zero hours contracts, which are sometimes known as casual contracts, is not to contract with, and pay, individuals to work a set number of hours per week, but to use and to pay individuals only as and when required.

lets rewrite this Doublespeak :

The aim of zero hours contracts, .. is to restrict an individuals rights to work without supplying a reasonable wage

as pointed out the MOO is insufficient and I look forward to the first GCHQ employee who is found moonlighting for the Ruskies and gets off because our government is too tight to pay them.

[kingcook]

Public sector causes confusion by saying everyone must be caught by IR35, then decides on offering zero hours contracts which have no "mutuality of obligation" shocker

Zero hours contracts for NHS staff