A councillor has said he regularly saw shop workers reduced to tears in York by ‘pernicious’ zero-hour contracts.
Liberal Democrat Cllr Christian Vassie said mainly women were employed on the contracts which left them unable to afford bills and facing uncertainty over their hours.
It came as part of a discussion on the gender pay gap and other employment issues in York.
Council figures show around two thirds of part-time employees in York are women looking to balance work with other responsibilities by working in jobs that typically pay less overall.
Liberal Democrat Cllr Vassie, of Wheldrake ward, said he found the practice of zero-hour contracts in part-time work particularly ugly after seeing the effect of them first-hand.
He added they should be tackled as part of wider efforts to equalise pay, along with gaps between the lowest and highest earners within organisations including the council.
The councillor said: “When I worked in a city centre fair trade shop from 2017 to 2020, the practice of zero-hour contracts struck me as at least as important an issue as the amount people were earning.
“I was regularly seeing people in tears at the end of the month because they couldn’t pay the bills and they didn’t know from one week to the next whether they would be employed.
“For me that’s such a pernicious way of employing people, it impacts women predominantly but not exclusively, I’ve seen young men in tears as well.”
Labour equalities spokesperson Cllr Katie Lomas said many retail and hospitality workers on zero-hour contracts had to work multiple jobs.
The government has proposed banning the contracts, which allow people to be hired without the guarantee of regular hours, as part of measures in its Employment Rights Bill.
‘Widespread’ bad practices
City of York Council’s economy, place, access and transport scrutiny committee discussed figures showing there was a £84.90-a-week difference between the average pay for men and women locally.
The figures, from the latest Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, showed median gross weekly earnings for women were 12.5 per cent less than for men in 2023-4.
Conservative Cllr Chris Steward said gender pay gap figures, collected from businesses employing 250 workers or more, likely hid inequality in smaller companies.
He added there were issues with the way data had been collected historically, with months-long gaps in reporting since 2010.
Copmanthorpe ward’s Cllr Steward said: “My gut feeling is that the bad gender practices are going to be far more widespread among smaller employers, 249 workers is still an enormous amount to have.
“Someone getting pregnant is going to cause far more issues for a business employing a few people than it is for a large one, but we don’t have those details in the data.”
Coun Lomas said it was clear that some businesses and organisations were doing better than others on closing the gap, with the council among those with better practices.
She added work was ongoing to look at differences in pay in York across minority groups, including women.
The finance executive member said: “Part-time work can have a significant impact on overall working potential.
“The employers that get it right are inclusive, flexible and supportive and they allow part-time workers to progress in their careers, that’s where the gender pay gap gets reduced.
“The Government is currently working on abolishing zero-hour contracts because whether it’s intended or not they allow employers to exploit people.
“One of the reasons we have such a stubborn gender pay is because we value different people’s labour differently even though there’s no great difference between the amount of effort someone on the lowest pay puts in versus someone on the highest.”
Other issues discussed by councillors on Tuesday, February 25 included the cost of childcare and its effect on the income of those particularly on the lowest incomes.
Councillors heard the average cost of childcare in York was £75-a-day compared to the £12.60-an-hour which the Living Wage Foundation says is the minimum needed to live on.