Zero-hours contracts and on-call contracts

Zero-hours contracts are generally taken to mean various types of employment contracts where the working hours vary between a maximum and minimum amount of hours and you are called into work as needed. Collective agreements may contain specific provisions on these and require average minimum working hours.

Since 1 June 2018, employment legislation has contained definitions of working hours arrangements for so-called variable working hours.

The collective agreements in certain sectors also contain corresponding provisions.

As well as this, on-call workers for whom each job they are hired for represents a separate fixed-term employment relationship, who are also considered zero-hours employees. 

Legislation on contracts with variable working hours

The Employment Contracts Act contains a definition of a variable working hours clause. This means, firstly, a working hours arrangement in which the employee’s working hours vary between a minimum and maximum amount under the employment contract. So the working hours agreed in the employment contract could be, for example, 0-40 hours a week or 10-37.5 hours a week.

A variable working hours clause means, secondly, an arrangement where the employee undertakes to perform work when separately asked to do so. Then the minimum amount of working hours is in practice zero.

The employer may not take the initiative to use a variable working hours clause if the employer’s labour need is fixed.

It also cannot be agreed that the employee’s minimum working hours are fewer than the employer’s labour need. It follows that minimum working hours can be increased during the employment relationship, since the employer must negotiate updated minimum working hours with the employee if the actual working hours in the preceding 6 months show that the minimum working hours have been agreed to be below the labour need.

Adding extra hours requires that the employee working on a variable hours contract gives consent separately each time or for a fairly short period. The law also contains separate provisions on drawing up work shift schedules, pay during illness and notice-period pay.

Collective agreements may contain their own definitions for corresponding working hours clauses. Check this in the collective agreement for your sector, which you can find here.

Collective agreement may prohibit use of zero-hours contracts

The use of variable working hours contracts may be prohibited outright in a collective agreement. For example, in the commerce collective agreement average minimum working hours must be agreed for employees working less than 37.5 hours.

If an employee in the commerce sector works "on call as required" or "on call separately", each spell  of employment offered separately constitutes a separate fixed-term employment relationship. There must be legal grounds for each employment relationship being fixed-term, so employers cannot use them if their labour need is continuous.

Then the employee also always has the right to refuse offers of employment spells.

If, on the other hand, shifts are entered in the shift schedule for an employee and he/she does not have an opportunity to refuse them, it means that he/she is a part-time employee and average minimum working hours must be agreed with him/her.