The murky world of life on zero-hours contracts hit the headlines this week when it was revealed that all Sports Direct's 20,000 part-time staff do not know how many hours they will work each week and have no holiday or sick pay.
But the giant sports retailer is far from the only user of the contracts. People across the country tell what it is like not to know how big next week's pay cheque is going to be – or if they will receive one at all. A few have agreed to be named, but many current employees whom the Guardian has spoken to have done so on condition of anonymity.
Sports Direct, retailer
Zahera Gabriel Abraham, 30, former worker, Croydon
"If you happen to fall out of line, or your manager thinks you have not done very well that week, your hours just get cut – you feel like you are just at the beck and call of the people above you. I felt I always had to play up to someone's ego just to work – and in the end you just start to feel a bit bullied. I suffered several panic attacks and had to take a couple of days off ...
"I felt very unhappy, very bullied and intimidated by the situation, because I didn't know week to week what I was going to get. My work life was very uncertain and as a parent I found it very, very difficult to live like that."
Abraham, who has a 12-year-old daughter, worked for Sports Direct for eight months before walking out after another panic attack in November.
"Regularly they would call you in the middle of the day and they are like 'Can you come to work now?' You feel like you have to say yes because if you say no you are seen as unreliable and the next week you don't get a shift, it is as simple as that … I felt hugely manipulated and bullied the whole time."
Part-time staff member, 25
"I had been working full-time for Sports Direct for two years and was entitled to the bonus but I had to demote myself because I'm a single mother and had just got out of an abusive relationship.
"I couldn't work the 45 hours a week I was doing because my daughter's nursery shut at 6pm and I couldn't finish work on time to get there, so I asked my manager if I could go to part-time.
"He told me I could only take a zero-hours contract, but he managed to give me fairly regular hours of around 20 a week. However, the area manager would call up from time to time to say we needed to cut hours because we weren't hitting targets.
"It was really frustrating to have given loyal service for so long to be told when circumstances changed that I could only get a zero-hours contract. And while the hours have been fairly regular, there is always the risk that they could change at the last minute at the whim of the area manager."
Sports Direct declined to comment.
Cineworld, cinema chain
Anonymous part-timer, 26, London
"I have worked there for about four years. Our working week starts on a Friday and the rotas normally go up on a Monday or Tuesday so we find out then what hours we have. It creates real difficulties, I have to pay rent and phone bills and stuff like that. When you're working five days a week that is pretty much OK but when suddenly you are down to 20 hours or something it becomes a problem.
"You can offer to take other people's shifts but when the work is scarce everyone is looking. You have to get permission to swap from a manager and when they say no, that is when it is really frustrating …
"It's stressful and it's disappointing, to be honest, because often Cineworld don't seem to understand that a lot of people are relying on this money to live. I live with my mum but I still have to pay rent and pay for food and travel and stuff, but I can never plan anything because you never know what your hours are going to be like next week…
"When I left college this is not what I thought my job would be like."
Student part-timer, 24, East Anglia
"As a student I am part-time so it is not too bad for me but once I finish my studies it is going to be a real problem. There are other people that work there that I don't know how they survive on how little hours we get some weeks."
He added that he sometimes got as much as 30 hours a week, other times as few as 10 hours.
"It does affect even me because obviously there is a lot less you can do when you are only getting £280 some months. I can survive off that but it is still quite a low amount of money especially when you are used to a bit more ...
"A lot of the people are between 18 and about my age; there are a few people there who are slightly older but some of them also have full-time jobs and just work here in the evenings or weekends."
Cineworld declined to comment.
Tate Catering, services for the modern art museums
Louise Brady, 32, Liverpool
"We were always fighting for hours. I felt I had to prove myself all the time, doing everything they asked, coming into work even when I felt sick. Doing that meant you got a good rating and the most amount of hours on the rota.
"The better people always got the hours. You could see people getting the worst shifts and lowest hours were the ones managers didn't like."
Brady said only the most compliant staff would emerge with more than 25 hours a week and described how managers would call in the evening asking her to turn up the next morning. In busy periods she was asked at short notice to wait on tables at black-tie dinners and clear up in her own time.
"I felt my employee rights were non-existent. There was no way I could even think about starting a family in that situation."
The Liverpool-based graduate was paid the minimum wage and statutory sick pay. She had to buy her outfit for evening work and wash her daytime uniform.
"The manager would call, usually in the evening, to say what shifts were available. If I missed him, which happened sometimes, I might only get a few hours. So you needed to have your phone charged and nearby."
Tate Catering, which is owned by the Tate Gallery and provides food at Tate Modern, Tate Britain and the galleries in St Ives and Liverpool, confirmed that it has staff on permanent zero-hours contracts but refused to give details.
Greene King, pub chain
Barman, 30, London
"I've been working for Greene King behind the bar for a year on a zero-hours contract. Our bar operates on the basis that they want more staff available than they actually need, so that they can always call on people when they suddenly get busy, but the business wants absolutely no responsibility to ensure you make the money you need to live on in return.
"I've had random, unpaid training and menu-tasting sessions, and I'm expected to start a shift or change a shift at the drop of a hat. Our rota for the week should be available mid-week the week before, so you have some idea of when you're working and how much. In practice, it actually appears sometime that weekend, right before the week begins.
"You are in no way guaranteed the hours you need, leaving staff to barter and scramble to pick up extra shifts from each other.
"Throughout shifts, managers are constantly trying to gauge how few staff they can get away with. If you're not totally pushed and struggling to keep up, someone will get sent home.
"I'm lucky enough to work several jobs, so I don't have to totally rely on bar hours to pay my rent But I work with a chap with a young family to support, and he has no reliable way of ensuring he will get enough hours to pay the bills. It's heartbreaking to see him constantly fret about whether he'll be able to raise enough money for a child's birthday or school trip, while the parent company posts colossal profits."
No one was available from Greene King to comment.
London Care, private-sector provider
Caroline, 49, homecare worker, London
"I have been working in homecare for 25 years, looking after elderly people in their own homes. The contract used to be with the council but it got taken over first by a charitable organisation, then a private company – London Care. They introduced a zero-hours system and I felt absolutely devastated to get the letter to say that is what they were doing because you budget, don't you, so you never spend more than you have got. But that just isn't possible on these contracts, all of a sudden any sort of security is taken away from you.
"I had to stop getting the internet and you have to shop differently – you're always looking for the bargains, trying to save anything you can, because you do not know where the next cheque is coming from … Your whole life changes, really."
Caroline spent more than a year on a zero-hours contract, then last summer – following a campaign by the Unison trade union – she was put on a permanent contract.
"When I was on a zero-hours contract my wages went down by half. It puts a lot of strain on you; it causes you stress and worry, and the thing is, even when they say the work is there, you are never sure how much you will be paid for. You can go out from 7.30am to 7.30 in the evening but only get paid for 5 hours ... it is just mind-blowing to be honest. I don't know how councils can give contracts like that to profit-making companies when we are trying to look after vulnerable people, it doesn't make any sense."
London Care confirmed that it uses zero-hours contracts for its casual and part-time staff
The career changer
Michael Holliday, 55, Bromborough, Wirral
After 29 years in the chemical industry, Holliday went back to college. Last year he completed a computer science degree at the Chester University.
"I was finishing my degree and started to look for jobs when I was given the name of an agency. I was told I had an interview with a local computer firm and arrived to find lots of people completing numeracy and literacy tests. I did mine. Then a few weeks later I got a call, but I had exams. When they rang again, it became clear the contract was zero-hours.
"There are no other jobs like it, but I'm 55 and they want 25-year-olds who don't have responsibilities. With a zero-hours contract you don't know when you are going to work, there is no security, and I've still got a mortgage to pay. Yes, my wife works as a nurse but she doesn't earn very much. I need steady employment."
Holliday is unable to claim jobseeker's allowance and instead works part-time as a cleaner at a doctor's surgery while he looks for a permanent position. My school in the 1970s was churning out factory fodder and that is what we were all educated to do, but I regretted not being able to go to university so when the opportunity arose I took it.
"I've been to interviews in Manchester and considered Birmingham. Now I've got to think about London. My wife and I have agreed on moving because there aren't the jobs."
Guardian News & Media, publisher of the Guardian, does not employ anyone on zero-hours contracts.
The company also has a fixed team of contracted outsourced staff in the canteen, security and switchboard. In the canteen none of the fixed staff are on zero-hours contracts.
However, the outsourced company does use six zero-hours employees to manage any sickness/holiday/overtime cover for canteen staff who work at GNM offices.
In other outsourced areas there are two people on zero-hours contracts who are based in the Guardian's Kings Place office. They are paid at least the London living wage and receive annual pay rises and training.
