Flexi and Fair: Making zero hour contract hospitality jobs work
A presentation by Dr. Agnieszka Rydzik for Leeds Beckett University
Dr. Agnieszka Rydzik presents her research into how the zero-hour contract impacts on the lives and education of student-workers supporting themselves through their university courses.
She has identified three areas of insecurity that student-workers experience when working in hospitality jobs during study. Inflexibility (the opposite of the affordance that zero-hour contracts are intended to create), replaceability, and underappreciation. These are exacerbated by gaps in the employment practice of businesses in the hospitality sector and gaps in support of stakeholder bodies in student education and the hospitality industry.
Dr. Rydzik has developed a framework for employers to consider when employing students – the 8F Framework of Principles of student employment and established a range of policy briefs and guidelines for Employers themselves, Universities and Student and Trades’ Unions to develop strategies to support and protect student- worker rights at work.
Hospitality, Now! Aims to:
- Make mutual the flexibility of zero-hour contracts for both student-workers and employers,
- Improve employment practice and
- Strengthen support of student-workers by universities and unions
TO JOIN THE DEBATE ONLINE, REGISTER HERE: https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/events/research/dr-agnieszka-rydzik