This email was sent in response to a call out for emails ONLY to paulp [at] quaker [dot] org [dot] uk over the matter discussed in the text below.
Dear Paul,
I am writing to you about the three workers formerly employed on zero-hour contracts in the Friends’ House Hospitality Company.
Liverpool Industrial Workers of the World are shocked that any organisation – let alone a Quaker one, with all its espoused beliefs of social and economic equality – would treat its workers this way.
Friends’ House’s ‘solution’ to the problem of zero-hour contracts is nothing of the kind. The problem with zero-hour contracts is that they offer no job security – employees can lose their jobs suddenly and with little defence – and if those workers try to do something about it they are even more vulnerable than someone on a fixed-hour contract. This is exactly what has happened here.
Your standard response that the union was consulted and the workers given a chance to apply for a job is extremely disingenuous given that you in fact broke negotiations, terminating contracts without proper notice, to advertise a single job pitting all three workers against each other, and the workers chose to protest in solidarity rather than compete.
Our solidarity and support is with the sacked workers. We urge you to reinstate them, and would like to remind you how much Friends’ House’s business depends on an ethical public image.
Secretary, Liverpool IWW