Committees

BTC questions Frasers Group, Evri, Deliveroo and Uniqlo on the impact of gig-economy style “self-employment” and zero-hours contracts

10 January 2025

Following contentious evidence on labour abuses from Shein and McDonald’s last week, on Tuesday the BTC will hold the final evidence session in its current inquiry Making Work Pay: The Employment Rights Bill, with a look at the reality of employment status, the gig economy and zero-hours contracts.  

Does “flexible” - some might say insecure or precarious - work actually foment the conditions for workplace abuses? 

Will the provisions of the Employment Rights Bill make effective change for workers and business, in a way that can counter any loopholes and unintended consequences for each? 

Sports Direct, part of Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group, committed in 2016 to ending zero-hours but pulled back from implementing the change, and will face questions - alongside union representatives - about the conditions and practices needed to fairly manage workers’ time commitment instead.  

Courier companies like Deliveroo and Evri, appearing in the second panel, have faced landmark legal challenges to the status, rights and benefits they afford their riders and must answer serious questions about the impact of industry practices like “rider substitution”.   

And Uniqlo, appearing alongside, has made the unusual choice in garment retail to hire freelance workers rather than agency staff to cover flexible need.  

Are these practices just ways for big business to cut costs by denying workers basic rights and benefits, with the ever-attendant risk of exploitation?  

Evidence session

On Tuesday 14 January from 2.30pm    

  • Neil Carberry, Chief Executive at Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) 
  • Mr Paddy Lillis, General Secretary at Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers  

At approximately 3:30pm 

  • Paul Bedford, Group Director of Policy and Sustainability at Deliveroo 
  • Hugo Martin, Director of Legal and Public Affairs at Evri 
  • Alessandro Dudech, UK Chief Operating Officer at Uniqlo 

Further information

Image: House of Commons