TUC report reveals women more likely to work on potentially exploitative contracts

A new report published by the Trade Union Congress, better known as the TUC, has revealed that women are 34% more likely than men to be on exploitative zero-hours contracts, which, the body says, is “hindering progress towards gender equality”.

The union body sets out the problems with zero-hours contracts, including that they limit workers’ abilities to plan their lives, budget and care for their dependants by denying them the ability to control how much they will earn in any given week. This makes zero-hours working more likely to be at risk of exploitation, as workers are discouraged from raising concerns against their employer for fear of not being allocated further work.

The report found that:

• in eight of the 10 occupations with the highest number of workers on zero-hours contracts, women are over-represented. This includes industries such as social care, where 75% of care workers are female and hospitality, where women are nearly twice as likely to be waiters than men, a profession where a third of the workforce are on zero-hours contracts
• women are more likely than men to remain on exploitative zero-hours contracts for longer than one year (69% compared to 64%)  
• on average, women on zero-hours contracts earn nearly £10 less an hour compared to men not working on these contracts. 

TUC General Secretary, Paul Nowak, highlights that “exploitative working practices — like zero-hours contracts — are holding many people back. As ever, women workers are bearing the brunt. They are more likely to be concentrated in sectors with endemic levels of insecure work”.

This report has come in a week in which the Government announced plans to amend the Employment Rights Bill, which is currently progressing through Parliament and which will bring an end to exploitative zero-hours contracts and introduce the right to new guaranteed-hours contracts, amongst other reforms.

Speaking on the Bill, Paul Nowak has said:

"The Employment Rights Bill will bring forward common sense reforms to deliver more secure jobs for zero-hours contract workers and help bridge the gap in pay and rights between men and women.”

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