HOW far have workers’ employment rights really travelled over the years.

Our city has a history that can provide an insight and make us wonder.

In the 1930s thousands looking for a chance of work came from all over the country to Oxford’s growing car industry.

More cars needed to be built and factories needed more workers. They were hired and given a chance, some didn’t even last a day before being told that they were no good and not wanted, but even those kept on as hourly paid employees had no guarantee of always working a full day as parts were in short supply and often ran out.

The workers could be taken off the clock at any time and told to wait about until more supplies arrived.

Short time at the Pressed Steel was mostly during the winter months.

A neat trick that my father and his mates suffered at the start of the day happened when they hung their overcoats on a peg, which was then hoisted up to the roof because without their coats the managers knew they could not go home and instead had to wait around unpaid.

They were often kept waiting a long time as new supplies came in later on in the day, which meant working late.

It was a very insecure life, not that different from today’s zero-hours contracts and the way that many hard working people are supposedly employed with no set hours and no guarantee of paid work from day to day.

At least at the Pressed Steel, when the workers joined unions, they did eventually gain a guarantee minimum wage if they were laid off. Todays zero-hours workers need to organise in order to collectively challenge the way they are being treated, if they don’t they will continue to suffer days without pay and insecure employment.

I simply don’t know how today’s young workers can build a life waiting for a phone call to say they are needed for work. We have now gone back in time instead of going forward.

JOHN FRAY London Road, Wheatley