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Fighting against zero hours for decent work

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Unite the Union, decent work for all campaign, five things‘Decent work for all’ campaign focusses on 5 issues.

Trade union activists targeted Sports Direct over its shameful employment practices in a protest at Rangers’ Ibrox stadium on the weekend.

Protest banners also appeared in other parts of Scotland, including at the Forth Bridges, Glasgow’s George Square, The Kelpies near Falkirk, as well as in the Ibrox grounds.

This was part of the trade union Unite’s ‘Decent Work For All’ campaign which has seen the retail chain Sports Direct and its owner Mike Ashley targeted over the company’s use of zero-hours contracts, poverty pay and draconian employment practices.

Before Christmas, for example, carol singers targeted Sports Direct stores to highlight the company’s ‘scrooge-like’ working practices amid calls for HM Revenue and Customs to investigate the non-payment of the national minimum wage at the retailer’s Shirebrook warehouse in Derbyshire.

Those calls, from Britain’s largest union, Unite, and the 12 December action in towns and cities across the UK, came after a Guardian investigation found that extra, unpaid time taken for “rigorous” compulsory searches meant workers were paid less than the minimum wage.

Likening working conditions in the Sports Direct warehouse to a ‘gulag’, the investigation also found that workers were being docked wages for arriving as little as one minute late for work.

Sports Direct had also come under fire repeatedly for its use of low paid, zero-hours contracts and agency staff at the Shirebrook site where workers work in fear of a ‘six strikes and you’re out’ rule.

Under this rule workers can receive a ‘strike’ for a range of ‘offences’, including taking too long in the toilet, chatting too much or being off sick.

Unite’s regional officer Luke Primarolo said at the time: “The majority of the workers at the Shirebrook depot are on precarious agency contracts, which while not illegal, make it virtually impossible for them to challenge unfair treatment for fear of losing their job.

“The culture of fear at Sport Direct’s Shirebrook depot is more akin to a workhouse than a FTSE 100 company.

“It needs to change with agency workers being given permanent contracts by Sports Direct and paid a decent wage.”

Activists are now seeking to build solidarity with Rangers fans angry at Ashley, who has a 9 per cent stake in the club, for using Rangers as a money-making machine for flogging his products.

Unite Scotland’s community co-ordinator Jamie Caldwell explained that: “Around 1.8 million people across the UK are on zero-hours contracts with no entitlement to holidays, sick pay or security and the majority of those affected are young workers in the retail and hospitality sectors.”

Caldwell accused Sports Direct of being “one of the worst culprits” in using the contracts, adding that the company, which has an operating profit of £180 million, is “responsible for one-fifth of all zero-hours contracts in the UK retail sector, while owner Mike Ashley has made billions off the back of these draconian working conditions.”

Ashley attempted to deflect the growing negative publicity by awarding a 15p pay rise to workers – but Unite are calling for Sports Direct to pay a living wage.

Unite, Britain and Ireland’s largest trade union with over 1.4 million members working in all sectors of the economy, is currently campaigning to win the 5 things that make ‘Decent Work For All‘:

1. A wage you can live on: We all need a pay rise – and joining a trade union is the best way to win one. Trade union workplaces get 7 per cent better pay than those without trade unions.

2. Safe, secure work: All workers should be treated with dignity, in work that does not harm your health with workplace rights from the day you start work. Trade unions ensure you can enforce these rights when you need to.

3. Guaranteed hours each week: Too often flexible working just means insecurity. The use of forced zero and short-hours contracts needs to stop! We can win better contracts by organising and campaigning together

4. Training, development and career opportunities: We need positive routes into work, with training and development at work and not forced free labour on pain of losing benefits. Instead, we should have proper apprenticeships.

5. A collective voice and union representation: Organising together means strength in numbers as people act together in trade unions at work. Without this things like your pay and contract are just decided by your employer.

For more information about how to support the #FightFor5 campaign and win Decent Work For All click here.

Join the fight for decent work – pay you can live on; guaranteed hours; safe, secure work; training and career opportunities and a union voice #Fightfor5 #fightforfive and #decentwork4all.

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