Zero Hours Contracts

There have been calls for more investigation into zero hours contracts, which strikes me as very sensible.  At the moment, I don't think anyone understands how these work or why they are becoming widespread.  I don't buy the argument from some quarters that everyone on zero hours is happy and delighted to be "flexible".  At least some of these contracts must be exploitative, and we need to find out how many are.  It is of a piece with the wider agenda that Ed Miliband is pursuing around squeezed living standards and raising wages to give a reasonable living standards.