Zero Hours and Work Worth Doing

Work, if it is worth doing, should engage the whole person. It should be more than a source of revenue. Similarly, work done by others ought to be more than a quick fix for an organisation which is finding it hard to stay in business. If a job has an intrinsic value both employer and employee have responsibilities to each other, as well as to the work itself. The zero hour contract puts this kind of mutual sense of responsibility at risk. 

Zero hour contracts are being compared to what used to be called ‘temping’, the kind of work which was to be had via an agency and which would last for a specified length of time. They have also been likened to the situation of the self employed. But neither of these two ways of earning a living compare to the new zero hour contract already being used by councils and organisations who ought to know better.

The problem is one of value and of human worth. The ‘zero’ devalues the work. It also devalues the worker and, in the process, the person or organisation offering it. A zero hour contract makes the worker feel that they are no more than a tool or facility which is expendable rather than a person who will contribute to the ongoing life of the organisation, even if on a temporary basis. Zero hours can be read as ‘flexible’ but they can also be read as involving zero responsibility because in failing to take account of the worth of the human person, the contract renders the work itself valueless to all parties concerned, so no one is really responsible to anyone. 

The problem also lies with purpose, or the lack of it when it comes to any kind of work, whether or not it is contractual. Work is desirable, good and valuable, not only to the extent that it provides a person with a livelihood but because it has its own intrinsic value and purpose, and that purpose involves the greater good of all parties involved. A job worth doing is therefore a job worth doing well. A job which can be cancelled at less than a day’s notice signals to the employee that it is not a real job and serves little real purpose. If it is to embody purpose, work should be essentially creative. It should be thought of as having the potential to transform whoever is involved, both employer and employee, and to create new things as a result of what they do together.

The Benedictine monastic tradition teaches that work is prayer, so all work needs to be done as for someone who is loved beyond all others – in other words, as for God. When undertaken in this way, by employer and employee alike,  work consecrates the ordinary and sometimes boring task into a sacrament.This allows for the transcending of ordinariness and reveals the image of God in the human beings who are doing it. .