Legal action launched over use of zero hours contracts

A leading sports retailer is facing legal action over its use of zero hours contracts for its part-time workforce.

Law firm Leigh Day, which is backed by campaigning organisation 38 Degrees, is bringing the claim on behalf of Zahera Gabriel-Abraham, who has worked at Sports Direct’s Croydon store as a sales assistant since October 2012.

The company employs approximately 20,000 people as part-time sales assistants.

Gabriel-Abraham claims that despite being labelled a ‘casual’ employee label, the reality of her working arrangement entitled her to be treated no less favourably than the retailer’s full-time staff.

Barrister Elizabeth George of Leigh Day said: “We are not arguing that employers cannot have genuine flexible contracts, but the contract under which Ms Gabriel-Abraham worked.... has no flexibility at all for those people who sign them.”

George claimed that “there was no practical difference between the obligations put on my client by the company and those placed on full-time staff”.

She added: “Casual workers traditionally supplement an employer’s salaried staff, to be called upon when cover is needed or demand is high. In return for not having the security of knowing when you might work you have the benefit of being able to choose when you work. Without that choice you are not a casual worker you are just a worker with no job security.

“The 'casual' part-time employees in this case are employees in the conventional sense and denying them their paid holidays, sick pay and bonuses is unlawful."

The legal action comes in the week that the UK’s largest union, Unison, claimed that local authority commissioning practices in relation to homecare services were fuelling the rise in the use of zero hours contracts.