ABSTRACT
In the UK zero hours contracts are a variation of on-call contracts. These entail no specific guarantee of hours, as employers can offer work when available and will pay when work is accepted and undertaken. Leighton and Painter (2001) argue that only the employer benefits, because workers are excluded from most of the basic statutory employment rights (Case study 2.2). It is hard to assess the extent of the use of zero hours contracts in the HI. Head (1998) found that 45 per cent of hotels used zero hours contracts, while WERS showed that they are used in only 7 per cent of HI workplaces, mainly in hotels and bars.
