Labour will end zero hour contracts

Ed Miliband has stated that he will pass a law that will bring to an end zero hour contracts, if he is elected as Prime Minister at the upcoming general election.

Mr Miliband would bring a law into practice that any employee who works for a business for 12 weeks on regular hours would be entitled to a regular contract.

The Labour leader has said, “We have an epidemic of zero-hours contracts in our country – there’s been a 20% increase in the last year alone – undermining hard work, undermining living standards, undermining family life. Because if you don’t know from one day to the next how many hours you’re going to be doing, how can you have any security for you and your family?”

Opposition parties have disagreed with Labour’s stance on the issue. The Conservative party believe this law would be a threat to jobs for the UK people, whilst the Liberal Democrats feel that Mr Miliband is being “impractical”. Vince Cable, Lib Dem business spokesman has said,

“I just don’t see the Miliband proposals as being practical because we know there are large numbers of companies that don’t have constant work and there are large numbers of people who prefer flexibility.”

Employment groups have also disagreed with Labour’s proposal, CBI director-general John Cridland has said,

“Of course action should be taken to tackle abuses, but demonising flexible contracts is playing with the jobs that many firms and many workers value and need.”