COVID-19 has exposed the vulnerability of millions of UK workers employed on zero-hours contracts.
For them, self-isolation means a sudden loss of income, often without access to redundancy payments, sick pay, or universal credit. According to the Office of National Statistics, a record 974,000 people were on a zero-hours contract for their main job at the end of 2019. This is a 130,000 increase over the previous year.
The challenge to ethical investors is clear – how do they encourage powerful corporations to offer fair conditions of employment for honest work?
S Waters and Q G Rayer (2020), Zeroing in, originally published in TRANSFORM magazine September 2020 © IEMA, p15, 28 August 2020.
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