Frasers Group says two-thirds of retail staff are still on zero-hours contracts
The owner of Sports Direct has confirmed that two-thirds of its retail workforce remain on zero-hours contracts ahead of new legislation designed to limit their use.Frasers Group told MPs who are examining plans to strengthen protection for employees that 11,500 staff were on the contracts, which do not guarantee any weekly working shifts, and did not receive compensation even if shifts were changed at the last minute.MPs on parliament’s business and trade select committee also heard that three-quarters (4,000) of the 5,200 people employed at the group’s main warehouse in Derbyshire are agency workers who can be let go without notice, more than eight years after the company promised MPs it would move them on to permanent contracts.The testimony came from Andy Brown, chief people officer at Frasers Group – which owns House of Fraser, the luxury streetwear chain Flannels, Evans Cycles and Sports Direct.He admitted the pace of change was “certainly not fast”, with an average 200 people a year shifting from agency to permanent contracts over the past three years.
The high number of staff on zero-hours contracts emerged almost a decade after Sports Direct’s owner pledged to cut their use in response to criticism from MPs, although it later backtracked,In 2016, the retail group had 90% of its retail workforce with no guaranteed hours, prompting MPs to accuse its boss and lead shareholder, Mike Ashley, of running “a Victorian workhouse”,Labour had pledged to ban the contracts, but its employment rights bill instead includes a right to guaranteed hours based on a worker’s shifts over a three-month period,Brown said Frasers now tried to offer those on zero-hours contracts at least 12 hours a week and, in the past year, had offered an average 16 hours a week to those workers as technology enabled better planning,He said managers were able to give a month’s notice of potential shifts and were asked to give at least two weeks but could give less without compensation.
Frasers agreed with the “principles of protection for those on low or zero-hours” contracts, Brown told the hearing, and had tried to improve conditions for these important members of its workforce,“We don’t see a benefit if those on zero-hours contracts are dissatisfied,” he added,However, Gregor Poynton, a Labour MP, said many businesses already offer compensation to workers for last-minute changes to their shifts telling Frasers: “You could do that but you choose not to,”He asked Brown to imagine seeing a last-minute loss of working hours when he had put childcare in place, asking: “Could you manage your family finances on that basis?”Antonia Bance, another MP, said she had evidence that numerous people had “worked a decade plus on agency contracts” at the warehouse in Shirebrook, Derbyshire,She asked Brown whether the company did this to “minimise your liabilities”.
Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionBrown said he did not know if agency workers had been in place for such time periods, but he said conditions in the warehouse had improved since 2016,He said no ambulances were called to the facility last year, staff were now able to take breaks outside the grounds and bottlenecks around bag searches had been dealt with so that staff were not waiting around without being paid,Paddy Lillis, the general secretary of the shopworkers union USDAW, told MPs the employment rights bill was “going to be transformational for millions of workers across the UK”,He said: “If you are a retail worker and on a no or low-hours contract and not knowing from one week to the next what your hours are going to be, you can’t get a mortgage, you can’t rent, you can’t get a loan,” Lillis said such problems led to “insecurity and mental health issues” which should not be part of a modern economy.
However, he expressed concern about potential loopholes which would enable “unscrupulous employers” to circumvent the protection for workers, such as using agency staff, setting unrealistic timescales for judging regular hours worked or regularly asking people to work way more than the hours in their contract.
Scientists find hundreds more genetic risk factors for depression
A global study has identified 300 previously unknown genetic risk factors for depression because it included a much wider population sample.According to the World Health Organization, 3.8% of the population has depression at any one time, affecting about 280 million people.While a range of factors including adverse life events, physical ill health and stress can increase the risk of developing depression, it also has a genetic component.An international team of researchers, led by the University of Edinburgh and King’s College London, studied anonymised genetic data from more than 5 million people in 29 countries, with one in four from non-European ancestries
NHS trust admits liability for doctor who sexually abused patients
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Are ultra-processed foods changing the shape of our jaws?
Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have caused concern among experts for their potential impact on human health, but now scientists have warned they might also affect how our bodies develop, in particular our jaws.We take a look at the issue and explore what, if anything, should be done.A number of studies based on skull measurements of individuals from different populations have revealed the shape of the human jawbone is associated with diet.Populations that rely on agriculture have been found to have different shaped, typically smaller, jawbones than hunter-gatherers. This has been found in populations that lived either side of the transition to farming and in those living at a similar point in time but with a different diet
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Drones flying into jails in England and Wales are national security threat, says prisons watchdog
Drones have become a “threat to national security”, the prisons watchdog has said, after a surge in the amount of weapons and drugs flown into high-security jails.Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, called for urgent action from Whitehall and the police after inquiries found that terrorism suspects and criminal gangs could escape or attack guards because safety had been “seriously compromised”.His demands follow inspections at two category A prisons holding some of England and Wales’s most dangerous inmates. HMP Manchester and HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire had thriving illicit economies selling drugs, mobile phones and weapons, and basic anti-drone security measures such as protective netting and CCTV had been allowed to fall into disrepair, inspectors found.In a report released on Tuesday, Taylor said the police and prison service had “in effect ceded the airspace above two high-security prisons to organised crime gangs” despite knowing they were holding “extremely dangerous prisoners”
Charities forced to ‘evict’ adults in their care to stay solvent, survey finds
Charities providing specialist care to thousands of vulnerable adults with learning disabilities and severe autism are having to “evict” residents to avoid insolvency because of tax and wage rises and local authority funding cuts.Non-profit providers say their work is in a “state of acute precarity” with many preparing to cut services, close doors to new residents and effectively evict tenants because the fees councils pay no longer meet the cost of care.The warning comes as concerns grow that the government, which announced a three-year review of social care headed by Lady Casey a fortnight ago, is not moving swiftly enough to avert a worsening crisis in the sector.The annual Sector Pulse Check survey of more than 200 social care providers, both private and charitable, says many are on the brink as they struggle to remain viable in the face of cash-strapped councils’ refusal or inability to meet the rising cost of services.It says charities increasingly have to threaten to walk away from contracts – effectively evicting individuals in residential care – to force councils to pay the full cost of specialist services
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