Working students: Zero hours, zero worth

Everyone wants to live in London, a vibrant city that offers you uncountable opportunities, experiences, a competitive job market and much more.

According to a study carried out by LSE Cities, London is the city that hosts the largest number of immigrants and I also fall in this category.

This map has been first published by The Atlantic and represents a study conducted by LSE Cities (London School of Economics)

People come to London for different reasons.

Some people come are here to study, to experience something new and people come here to find the dream job (or maybe just a job considering the European crisis).

Samuel Johnson once said, “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life” but I do believe this statement should be reviewed according to different perspectives.

Life in London is draining; living, renting an accommodation and paying for public transports is extremely pricey and the national minimum wage is only £6.70 per hour before tax.

The average price to rent a small room in a shared flat is £600 per month, the weekly fare for buses and underground (zone 1-2) is £32.40 per week and then comes the cost of living, which obviously include food shopping and bills.

London is always pictured as the city offering equal opportunities to everyone no matter how old you are, if you have tattoos or coloured hair. In this city your career grows according to your merits and not according to the people you know inside the company or the way you look.

When you move to London and you speak to your family and friends still living in your home country, you get addressed as the lucky person who changed his/her life for something better; the person who moved to the most civilised city in Europe.

Well, if that was the case, living here is really worth the struggle.

Yet in stark contrast, according to my own experience I would definitely say that this is a bit of an overstatement.

If you are a student lucky enough to have someone who is capable to financially assist your life in London and you do not need to earn yourself an income, then you can probably find amazing (unpaid) internships to boost your CV and these might lead you to a nice job.

Besides, if you are a working student looking for a humble job to have a secure income, you are just a number. Number zero, like the amount of hours granted in an employment contract that you better sign, considering how hard it is to find a job that matches your timetable.

It is quite hard for a student to find a job that fits in the spare time and employers offering this opportunity seem to know that.

Sometimes companies demonstrate a good understanding towards students’ commitments and needs but in some other cases, students have to come to term with critical situation they have to accept.

I am a student and a worker. I am studying for an MA and I am working as a part-time sales assistant (I can not work full time as university attendance is compulsory).

The day I attended my job interview I specified I was studying therefore my availability was weekends only (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) and my employer seemed to agree. I got my zero hours contract stating the days I was meant to work and I was happy. However, in just few months, the atmosphere became unbearable and my mood changed.

Two people resigned and rather than hire someone else, my employer asked me to work few more days. As soon as I said I could not, my working life become a nightmare.

I was getting frightened every single day being told I could have lost my job because they needed a full time person rather than a part-time one and moreover, also my disability became a problem.

The day of the interview I told my employer that I am half deaf (I wear an earing aid) and this problem sometimes causes me a loss of balance or an increase of the tone of my voice. Unfortunately, I have no control over these issues.

Since I told the company I could not work any other day until the end of the term, I started receiving verbal complaints from my manager saying that customers that I never served, were disappointed about my voice being too loud at times. All of a sudden I was also given tasks I could not cope with such as climb on high ladders while holding boxes in my hands.

Zero was not only the type of contract I signed but was also my value within the company.

Another day, I had to face out a very angry customer who pointed her finger at me saying “shut up and back off you servant” when I told her that unfortunately sales were over. Yet again, my manager, who was there with me at the time, did not even try to take my side or to reassure me. In their eyes, I became the anti-company employee despite education is a right.

Although it is stated also on the Government website that people working on Zero hours contract “do not have to do work when asked”, asking for a day off or calling sick because I had temperature became something to fear and for this reason I found myself going to work sick several times.

The reward? Being granted a next shift or not getting fired.

I can only imagine how many students are facing out the same issues on a daily basis, working for employers constantly trying their best to make them quit the job instead of paying them redundancy.

What has happened to our rights or moral values?

Where is the London I saw when I was a tourist, the London I fell in love with? I remember people greeting you happily in every single shop, people saying they were sorry even if it was not their fault and now all I can picture are employees working to survive and employers exploiting and treating workers as items they can exchange or refund.

So here we go dear Mr Johnson; I am a student and despite my love for London, I am tired of life; this life.